Eric Olen's contract at New Mexico is pretty sweet. I wonder if we'll be paying Les any more once we begin play in the MWC in 2026? He'd probably be the lowest paid head coach in the league with the contract that he currently has.

Olen’s contract is worth $6.5 million over five years, starting at $1.2 million for 2025-26, or nearly three times what he made at UCSD.

There’s also a $30,000 moving allowance, a country club membership and a courtesy car, plus numerous performance bonuses that would add another $100,000 for a season similar to what UCSD just had.

New Mexico received a reported $375,000 buyout from Pitino’s departure to Xavier but protected itself much more in case Olen becomes the object of someone else’s eye. It would cost $2.65 million if he left in year one, just over $2 million in year two.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/04/04/red-dawn-coach-eric-olen-settles-in-at-new-mexico-after-21-years-at-ucsd/

Chatty wins 85-84 in OT. God, what a heartbreaking way to lose. Jurian Dixon had a wide open, point blank shot at the buzzer but he didn't use the backboard and missed it. I feel sorry for the young man.

Horrible foul called on Myles Che when the Chatty player kicked his leg out to the side while shooting a 3 and hit Che who was running by him and Che got called for a 3 point foul.
The Chatty player made all 3 FT's to take 2 point lead with 16 seconds to go in the game. Luckily, Che got fouled shooting a 3 with 13 seconds to go and tied up the game.

Chattanooga 38 Irvine 37 at the half. Good basketball by both teams. Myles Che played his freshman year at Chatty before transferring to Irvine.

I like to see him here for another year as a grad student. He improved tremendously this year and was a solid contributor. I think he'd be a good team leader given his experience and growth here.

I think Dr Wood is so consumed with the "FBS or Bust" campaign that charting a well researched, prudent path to the FBS is lost in all the hype and hyperbole. He sees Sac as a budding, FBS, power football program that can follow a path similar to what Deion Sanders has done at Colorado. So they bring in a coach with name recognition who is on the college football fast track and build a team by recruiting highly rated players, some of which have a history of problems at previous schools, while showing the door to many of the current players on the roster. Winning at any cost is the name of the game.

He is willing to take the chance to go independent in order to gain national recognition by scheduling a few games against power schools and, hopefully, pulling some upsets while winning their other games by blowouts. The whole idea is betting that the power conferences will come calling if you win and talk loud enough while building a program with a lot of splash and talk of cash. He believes that if they win big and talk loud and they will come...it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

The heat in the stadium is a major problem for the early season games. I don't know what the best solution to this problem is if there is one but east side is a oven on hot days and, even when they schedule games in the early evening, the sun is directly in the eyes of the fans on the east side. You see fans seeking out even tiny bit of shade they can find in the grass areas on hot evenings also.

The only solution that I can see is for games scheduled in late August through early October is later starts. 7 pm games would be inconvenient for some fans but at least it would be more tolerable than getting fried and safer for the players as well. Many Aggie fans will simply not show up if they know it's going to be unbearably hot in the stadium.

Chattanooga beat Loyola of Chicago 80-73 and will play Irvine for the NIT title at 6 pm on Thursday.

Irvine is a fun team to watch. They stayed composed even when they were down big in the first half. They are disciplined, confident and well coached. I sure hope they can bring the title home.

Irvine wins 69-67 and will play in the NIT championship game on Thursday.