The Athletic last week interviewed 35 Division I basketball coaches, assured anonymity, and asked them to estimate how much each pays for its basketball roster. Big 12 schools averaged $8.6 million per team, trailing just the SEC’s $9.7 million per team.
If accurate, or even close, it means that most Big 12 basketball players, those in the rotation, probably are paid at least $500,000 per season. Tommy Lloyd probably can’t seriously recruit any Top 200 recruit unless the player is offered something close to $500,000.
Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd watches the Wildcats defend a Zip offensive series in their game against Akron during the second half of their first-round game of the men’s NCAA Tournament in Seattle on March 21, 2025.
This isn’t the world most of us grew up in. Many years ago, when I was the basketball manager at Utah State, then a regular in the NCAA Tournament, the biggest event of each week was a team dinner at the student union, when most players had two or three servings of everything and packaged two handfuls of food to go.
They had no money to buy groceries for any sort of big meal. And that included the Aggies’ future NBA players like Nate Williams, Marv Roberts and Shaler Halimon. Now they’d be millionaires. or close.
5 takeaways from Arizona’s win over Purdue to send Wildcats to the Final Four | Michael Lev
