While explaining his sudden resignation from Miami on Wednesday, coach Jim Larrañaga partly blamed the growing influence of NIL deals that have made it difficult for him to keep players in his program. Two days later, Norchad Omier — who helped Miami make the 2023 Final Four before transferring to a wealthy Big 12 school — scored 19 points and grabbed 24 rebounds for Baylor in a 107-53 victory over Arlington Baptist.
So … yeah.
“You’re talking to people that expect a million dollars for playing college basketball,” Larrañaga said.
Like I noted on Friday’s episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, nobody is going to feel sorry for Larrañaga losing players to the transfer portal because of NIL money given that his program used NIL money to get Nijel Pack, keep Isaiah Wong and make the Final Four just 15 months ago. If I were Larrañaga, I would’ve focused less on players getting paid and more on the fact that I’m 75 years old, understandably exhausted and completely uninterested in going through a second straight losing season that seems unavoidable.
Life’s too short.
Only unreasonable weirdos wouldn’t have understood that. But complaining about big NIL deals less than two years after your school used big NIL deals to make its first Final Four is never going to land well. I wish somebody would’ve helped Larrañaga understand that in advance of his press conference because it would’ve been more fun spending the past two days listening to people celebrate his incredible career than it’s been watching people roll their eyes at some of his comments.
Anyway …
Former Miami player Norchad Omier was statistically awesome for Baylor on Friday night. That was my initial point. I’m not sure how much money he’s making via NIL while playing for the Bears — but, honestly, I hope it’s a million dollars. He is, after all, the leading scorer and rebounder for the team ranked 25th in Saturday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. And a player like that should be worth at least a million dollars, I think, and, in many cases, probably more.
