Imagine If URI Really Wanted to Win at Sports

Imagine If URI Really Wanted to Win at Sports

Over the past decade, the University of Rhode Island men’s and women’s basketball programs have had two of the best basketball coaches in America.

 

Who says they were among the best?

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Their records. Dan Hurley was at URI for six seasons, and in his third season, he had turned the Rams around, going 23-10.  Then, in years five and six, there were two trips to the NCAA tournament and the field of 32.

 

The Rams were back. And the team was loaded with talent.

 

So, what happened next is UConn came knocking with a far bigger salary, and instead of matching, and probably needing to exceed the Huskies’ offer, the administration gave a tip of the hat, Hurley left, and the rest is NCAA history.

 

Hurley has won two National Championships, and the Rams have become an also-ran.

 

URI basketball is marginally better than the dregs of UNH and Maine, but for the past eight years has become one of hundreds of mediocre to bad college basketball teams.

 

The difference for the URI checkbook might have been an additional $3 million to $4 million a year to keep Hurley and to receive a payoff worth 50 to 100 times.  Instead of “Thinking Big,” URI thinks small.

 

If the adage success breeds success is in question, URI has proven that mediocrity breeds mediocrity.

 

Now, it is deja vu all over again.

 

By fluke, URI got a second chance with the women’s team. Tammi Reiss transformed the program into a beast, and she took them to the promised land.  The Rams went to this year’s NCAA tournament. She is a finalist for coach of the year. Does any of this sound familiar?

 

Then, Florida came knocking with reportedly an offer of about three times the existing Rhode Island package of $459,000 a year. Did URI learn its lesson from letting Hurley get away and match and exceed the Florida offer, realizing that its top-tiered coaches in top-tiered sports are investments in winning, brand-building, and a demonstration of a commitment to excellence?

 

Heck no. There was no offer to match or exceed.

 

Now, Rhode Island's men’s program returns for a fifth season, a coach who costs in excess of $2 million a year and has a conference record of 25-47.

 

URI’s approach to sports is to think cheap, hope and pray that by dumb luck someone will come through town and build some success, and then be sure that the five-year run is not the beginning of something big, but just an anomaly.

 

Think little.

 

 

PHOTO: Reiss, Steve Moffa, URI