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The state of Division 1 basketball is now totally controlled by money. The rich will continue to get richer with the transfer portal and NIL totally favoring the power 4 conferences. This year again we have lost most of our quality players. Long Beach will never be able to hold on to a player like Gavin Sykes for more than a year. I'm not sure how much money we have to give NIL with but I'm sure it's no more than $500,000 and that's probably high. Every major conference program gets 20 million annually to spend on NIL plus whatever contributions come from rich alumni, businesses, etc. For example Indiana football this year had 20 million to spend plus a major contribution from alum Mark Cuban of about 20-30 million more. In my opinion there will probably be a new division established fairly soon for the Long Beach's, UCI's, Wichita State's, etc. It will be like a Division 1-A in football. At present I would assume a player like Sykes will probably go to a major school, get paid about 1 million and be a rotation player in the top 8. It's so sad to see players changing schools only for a big pay day. I would hope rather than get a whole new team every year, win 10-15 games and have no chance to ever compete for ANY kind of championship that we go Division 2 fairly soon. At least we have the facilities and location to be a viable player in that division. Of course we would have the option of remaining Division 1 in men's volleyball where there is little NIL money and only about 50 teams competing. It would save a lot of money and angst on the part of the fans and alumni!