Mid-Major Basketball GMs, explained:

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

A few weeks ago, we announced a new content series with Teamworks on how General Managers work. Two weeks ago, we published our first dispatch, a closer look at specific skills needed to be successful as a P4 CFB GM. 

That’s important! But GMs at big-time college football programs aren’t the only folks working as general managers.

What about college basketball GMs working at mid-major programs?

This isn’t a completely ubiquitous position in college basketball, at least not yet, but it does exist at the mid-major level. A quick look at staff directories shows schools in the America East, Big Sky, A-10, MVC and others with somebody on staff with a ‘General Manager’ job title. But that person’s background and duties could run the gamut from former NBA front office staffer, to beloved former alumni, to basketball operations staffer, to uh, Shaq. 

At George Washington, GM Cooper Handelsman started his basketball career at the D-III level, before working his way into coaching at Lehigh, Brown, and the grassroots level, before getting into the operations side of the business, where he serves as the GM for both GW’s men’s and women’s programs.

At fellow A-10 member Saint Joseph’s, Rob Sullivan found his way back to Hawk Hill after a stint at Cornerstone Management, and years of serving in operations capacities at Saint Joseph’s. He was a member of the 2004 Hawks squad that made the Elite Eight.

Working in college basketball operations isn’t an easy gig, since what ends up going into the “other duties as assigned” part of the job description could fill a small book. But there’s at least a commonly understood scope of the job. With how fast everything is moving, that isn’t really the case for college basketball GMs.

“People are always like, well, working in college basketball wasn’t like this 15 or 20 years ago. And I’m like, [laughing], this isn’t what it was when I was working in 2019!”, Handelsman told me.

But that doesn’t deter him or Sullivan. Both pointed to a love of not just basketball, but an interest in the business of basketball that makes a GM role attractive…even though the job is more than just business or basketball.

“If the job is just going to be evaluating players and figuring out who might be able to play up or down a level, sure, you can bring in somebody with an MBA and a more traditional professional player personnel background. But I joke with those people…have you ever popped into a compliance office before? Do you know the JUCO rules?” It’s a similar sentiment to what NC State football GM Andy Vaughn expressed to me…there’s a campus dealmaking element to the job.

And there’s also a business angle. Both GMs told me that finding revenue is also part of the gig, not just managing it.

If there’s a school in the A-10 that’s planning on dropping all $20ish million dollars on House athlete payments, they’ve done a very good job keeping it a secret. Both GMs told me that while their programs have “opted-in” and are committed to competing at a high level, they’re not going to have unlimited financial resources. Other financial opportunities are going to be critical.

I suggested that maybe it could be easier to find more brand-based NIL opportunities at Saint Joseph’s, given that the school sits in a major market (Philly), and has a rich basketball tradition. Sullivan smiled, and said that while there are brand-centric opportunities out there, “this is a crowded professional sports market”, where a college team is always going to have to fight for oxygen. “We understand that our NIL efforts will be driven more by our fan base and our constituents, and we embrace and love that.”

George Washington also sits in a major, pro-sports focused market (Washington D.C.), and shares some of the same challenges. “DC is kind of a double-edged sword. There’s a ton of businesses and people here, but there are a lot of folks who want that attention on pro football, pro hockey, pro basketball…or the other colleges in the area. There are businesses that may love to partner with you…but they also love Jayden Daniels, you know?”

One place where Handelsman does see potential is using GW athletes to not just market themselves, but as a conduit for brands and alumni to re-engage with GW students or other alumni…the sort of folks who have influence in government, law, consulting, and other major industries in the DMV.

But what about the basketball part?

Being a GM isn’t just about dealmaking with brands or the local business community. There’s still the basketball component, where GMs will need to figure out how to best utilize their financial and institutional resources.

I believe that the advanced stats world is a little more advanced in basketball than it is with football…but unlike the NBA, college personnel are still working from limited datasets that may not be standardized across all of the country.

“We might not have NBA-level player tracking, but college basketball at this point, in my opinion, has become pretty good at analyzing basketball data. It’s not just KenPom, but there are tons of resources like Evan Miya that are awesome” said Handelsman.

“So much of what I do, along with other GMs across the country…is about forecasting and modeling,” said Sullivan. That includes modeling of what potential marketing opportunities might be, but also about how a player might develop under a Saint Joe’s coaching staff, what their market value might be in a year or two, and if the program has a chance at retaining that player over time.

Figuring out those intangibles is difficult, but critical. Given how quickly the transfer portal might move, and how transient rosters can be, programs may need to add players that they haven’t spent months, or even years, recruiting. It’s one thing to get an idea about how a player can rebound or run the break, but is that enough information?

Sullivan told me that one way Saint Joseph’s attacks this issue is to limit their pool a bit. “We’re still a 95 corridor-heavy recruiting base…the NY metro, the DMV, the East Coast. So for many of these players, we know their families, we know their high school coaches, their grassroots clubs.” That doesn’t mean the program won’t ever recruit players from other areas, but a look at the roster does show a heavy, heavy lean towards programs within 150 miles of campus. 

“We need to be the best Saint Joe’s that we can be. Now, we have high expectations and standards for what that means. But in the recruiting world, we know what kind of player we want and need to recruit to win games not just in the A10, but in the NCAA Tournament. We’re not going to compromise the academic integrity of the school, and we know who we want to recruit athletically, academically, culturally, socially, etc.”

The George Washington roster isn’t quite as localized, with players claiming hometowns in Florida, Atlanta and Saudi Arabia, as well as the DMV and NY area. Handelsman told me it’s critical for the program to map out lots of different potential options, since rosters can change so often. And while it is challenging to get the best financial information out there, the building blocks of roster building haven’t completely changed.

“Are these athletes an institutional fit? Do they fit with the returning players we have? Are they a good person? Do they care about a GW degree? Do they want to be in a city vs a rural campus environment?”

“The financial component is important, but we don’t want to lose sight of what has made programs successful in the past. Recruiting good players who are also good people.”

The fundamental job hasn’t changed. Finding the right people to build the right team and the right culture. The gig has just become a bit more complicated.