Building a Successful Mid-Major Basketball Program

Article by Nate Barlow

For the second time in five years, a true mid-major has made it to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament’s Final Four. Of course, this year’s entrant, the Butler Bulldogs, are no George Mason Patriots, the team that shocked the world with its upsets of Michigan State, North Carolina and Connecticut en route to its appearance on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Coming into this year’s tournament, Butler had already achieved several years of March Madness success. Following the model provided by the Gonzaga Bulldogs (what’s in a name?), Butler has parlayed that success, and hence recognition, into becoming a true mid-major national power, spending much of the 2009-2010 campaign in the Top 25 of both polls and finishing at #11 in the AP and #8 in the ESPN / USA Today Coaches Poll. After Saturday’s vanquishing of Kansas State, Butler’s win streak stands at twenty-four games, by far the longest in the nation.

Let’s take a look at what it take for a mid-major to break into college basketball’s elite.

Hire a great coach: Not anything surprising here, it’s the foundation of any great professional franchise or college program. In college, however, that means a great recruiter in addition to someone who can motivate and game plan. Whatever the skill set, a strong leader is one of the most important elements in any team sport and always square one.
Retaining such a coach when bigger programs come calling, however, is another matter altogether.
Recruiting: The good news in college basketball is that since there are so few players on a team (relative to college football), there is a lot more talent to go around. The bad news? For the same reason, variations in talent level are magnified on the court; one can draw an inverse relation between the number of players per team in a sport and the overall effect of an individual player’s talent. Since the best of the best will still go to the big name programs, of course, the kesy for a mid-major coach are to find those who somehow slipped through the cracks (e.g a center tall enough but not bulky enough for a top program) and to sign local players. The latter is important because smaller programs have smaller recruiting budgets; it’s easier to meet face to face with in-state players, who are also the most likely to know about your school in the first place.
Success begets success: Smaller schools come and go each year in the NCAA Tournament; only a handful maintain a continual presence (a corollary is that only a select few are likely to receive at-large bids in years they don’t win their conference titles). An important element not to be underestimated is the importance of that first multi-round run. That Cinderella status nets a team media coverage unlike that which they receive at any time. If the coach can capitalize on that sudden burst in recognition by expanding his recruiting pool (there’s that word again) and landing better players, he sets himself up for longer, multiple season success.
Win with underclassmen contributions: A major reason that we’ve seen more parity between the mid-major and Big Six conferences in recent seasons is the one-and-done phenomenon. Since the NBA no longer accepts players straight of high school, that top talent who might have made such a jump play one year of college ball before making the jump to the pros. Thus the big-name schools are not developing the experience and skill that come along with such that are a natural extension of working together over a period of several years. Smaller schools don’t have that program, either because their players aren’t ever going to play pro ball or because they need that four-year college experience to be NBA ready.
Often times when one of these mid-majors does have an extended NCAA Tournament run, they do so largely with seniors, precisely because they have been playing together for several years. Unfortunately, even if the head coach is then able to land some stronger recruits than he would have otherwise, the loss of so many graduating seniors sets him back several years… until that recruiting class hits its senior year. If a mid-major can win with a junior-year or younger core and thus suffer minimal attrition, the continuity necessary to be a repeat NCAA Tournament participant will be there.

One repeating them in these above rules is recruiting. The “R” word goes hand-in-hand with hiring a talented head coach; indeed, it’s one of the most important factors in hiring that coach. Without the right recruiting at the right time, a mid-major will never see enough success to break onto the national stage in a long-term meaningful way.

About the Author

Nate Barlow is an actor, writer & director based in Los Angeles. He operates Deep Into Sports (http://www.deepintosports.com), a sports site, & Food Trucks dot Info (http://www.foodtrucks.info), about the Los Angeles food truck scene. You can learn more about him at http://www.natebarlow.com.

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