Bradley and Wichita State are on another plane when it comes to attracting the most qualified coaches and paying them enough to keep them longer. Gregg Marshall had great success at Winthrop and Geno Ford won back to back MAC COY awards at Kent. Unfortunately, the rest of the league hires BCS assistants (in SIU's case, DBO's) on a wing and a prayer and has even seen head coaches leave to become assistants at Oregon (ISU Blue) and Southern Methodist (ISU Red). It's tough to build a consistent program when you're replacing the coach every time you taste success (or in ISU Red's case, just getting close).

Mens basketball coaches salaries
Creighton $1.35M
Wichita $900k (incentives pushing to $1.5m)
Bradley $700k (incentives pushing to $1m)
UNI $500k
ISU Red $375k
SIU $300k (but were paying Lowery $750k IIRC)
Drake $274k
MSU $241k
ISU Blue $219k
Evansville $180k


So it's important to find a new member willing to invest in its basketball program, and Denver with the largest endowment is probably the best bet. Belmont seems willing to invest but given its attendance figures and lack of endowment it's not clear how long it can keep that up.


Endowment of candidates, salary of head coaches
Denver $380m; $300k (in 2008; probably significantly higher now)
Loyola $315m; salary undisclosed (but I can't imagine it's more than $300k)
UIC $181m; $300k salary
Valpo $141m; salary undisclosed (but they gave Drew a contract extension and he's sticking around so it must be significant)
Belmont $76m; $728k salary
UMKC $1.2b (system-wide so misleading); $250k salary