Michigan Basketball: A.D. Warde Manuel Will Look at Beilein’s Contract
Is Michigan basketball coach John Beilein the best bargain in the Big Ten? Athletic Director Warde Manuel answered yes … ‘for now.’
Manuel hinted that a pay raise could be forthcoming, and there’s been talk that it could include an extension. The 65-year-old coach’s contract currently runs through the 2021 season.
“This is not my first rodeo,” Manuel said with a laugh. “I have to make sure I get a chance to look at that one and know some of the details I need to know, if you will, but I’m very happy for him.”
Manuel borrowed from Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh’s playbook in entering the locker room Saturday and asking, ‘who’s got it better than us?’
“And he’s right. Nobody has it better than us right now … there’s one other team that has that chance Monday,” Manuel said.
It would be fitting for him to win his first one this year, he added, in a year in which he was voted cleanest coach in the country in a vote of his peers while scandal has shamed many of the nation’s top programs.
“Absolutely. There’s no doubt about it,” Manuel said. “I’m proud of the way he carries himself, the way the team comports themselves. It’s a reflection of him, and for me and for the President and the Board of Regents, we’re just so proud of him and the way he carries himself. If he won his first this year, it would make us even more proud.”
Michigan is a heavy underdog (6.5 points) to Villanova Monday night, but the Wolverines are used to it, Manuel added.
“What makes them so special is that nobody at the beginning of the year thought they would be here expect the guys on this team,” he said. “We weren’t ranked that high. It wasn’t until we beat Michigan State at MSU that we were ranked for the first time, and I think it was in the 20s.
“Nobody really saw in this team what they saw in themselves.”
---
• Talk about this article inside The Fort
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolverine
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolverineMag, @BSB_Wolverine, @JB_ Wolverine, @AustinFox42, @AndrewVcourt, @Balas_Wolverine and @EvanPetzold.
• Like us on Facebook