CBS Sports’ deep dive into college basketball roster spending turned up plenty of eye-openers, but one of the clearest themes was simple: some coaches are squeezing far more out of their budgets than others.
The reporting from Matt Norlander and Isaac Trotter mapped high-major programs into spending tiers for the 2026-27 season, and it gave a fresh look at which coaches are winning despite operating with less financial muscle than plenty of their peers. The tiers run from Tier 1 at $20 million plus down to Tier 7 at $5 million to $7 million, and the list of overachievers is packed with familiar winners.
At the top of that group is Purdue’s Matt Painter. The Boilermakers landed in Tier 6, with a budget between $7.1 million and $9.9 million, putting them in the same range as Utah, Northwestern, DePaul and Penn State.
That makes Purdue’s level of success under Painter stand out even more. Continuity has long been the backbone of the program, and the fact that Purdue keeps thriving with modest resources says plenty about Painter’s standing.
Among Tier 6 teams, nobody else is really in Purdue’s class, and the only Tier 5 program that comes close is Iowa State.
Nate Oats checks in next, and Alabama’s place in Tier 4 is part of what makes his run so impressive. Thirteen of the SEC’s 16 schools spend at least one tier above the Crimson Tide, yet Oats has still pushed Alabama into the sport’s elite conversations.
He led the program to its first Final Four in 2024, has taken the Tide past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament in each of the past four years, and has delivered league titles in 2021 and 2023. Alabama has never been worse than a No. 6 seed under him, and with five first-round NBA picks on his resume, his ability to develop talent is part of the story too.
TJ Otzelberger lands third, and Iowa State’s rise under him has been steady and sharp. He’s now 5 for 5 in NCAA Tournament appearances in Year 6, with three Sweet 16 trips and three straight seasons as a No. 3 seed or better.
That’s even more striking when you remember what he inherited: a program that had gone 2-22 the year before he arrived from South Dakota State. Otzelberger quickly built an elite defense around a roster that ranked No. 340 in KenPom’s minutes continuity metric, and the Cyclones were back in the Sweet 16 almost immediately.
His 2026-27 team is ranked No. 12 in Gary Parrish’s Top 25 And 1.
Fred Hoiberg is another coach getting a lot out of limited expectations and limited basketball tradition. Nebraska’s spot in Tier 5 fit the program’s profile, especially since the Cornhuskers had never won an NCAA Tournament game before this past season.
But Hoiberg has pushed the program into new territory over the last three years. Nebraska has won 20 or more games in three straight seasons for the first time ever, and it has reached at least two NCAA Tournaments in a three-year stretch for the first time since the early 1990s.
Ben McCollum is already making noise at Iowa, even though this is only a one-year sample. He guided the Hawkeyes to a stunning Elite Eight run in his first season, and the early signs suggest he could turn them into a steady Big Ten force.
The challenge in 2026-27 is replacing Bennett Stirtz, the do-it-all guard now with the Oklahoma City Thunder after playing for McCollum at three different schools. Iowa didn’t make splashy offseason additions, but that fits the assignment in Tier 5 and Tier 6: win with less, and McCollum has shown he can do that.
Kyle Smith has Stanford outperforming its financial lane in a big way. The Cardinal are 41-27, including 20-18 in ACC play, through two seasons while working with one of the lowest budgets among high-major programs.
They barely missed the 2026 NCAA Tournament, but the numbers show they’ve been ahead of schedule under Smith. The 2025 team finished 18 spots better at KenPom than its preseason projection, and the year before that, Stanford finished 27 spots above where it was expected to land.
Jamie Dixon keeps showing the same pattern at TCU: tough, competitive teams that make the most of what they have. He has reached four of the past five NCAA Tournaments with a program that had only one appearance in the previous 30 years before he arrived. The Horned Frogs still haven’t broken through past the first weekend, but Dixon has made them a consistent tournament team on middling resources.
Ryan Odom’s start at Virginia has been loud. In his first season, he won 30 games, took the Cavaliers to a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and finished No. 17 in KenPom after starting the year at No.
- That kind of jump stands out in Tier 4, where roster-building still takes real precision.
Georgia’s spending sits at the bottom of the SEC, but Mike White has still managed to keep the Bulldogs moving forward. Georgia has reached back-to-back NCAA Tournaments under White for the first time since the early 2000s, and going 10-8 in SEC play with a roster in the $10 million to $12 million range is a strong sign of how well he’s working the pieces he has.
Greg Gard rounds out the list, and Wisconsin’s recent run under him has been steady even without top-half league spending. The Badgers are 73-35 overall and 38-22 in Big Ten play over the past three seasons.
They significantly beat preseason expectations in 2025 and have earned a No. 5 seed or better in each of the past three NCAA Tournaments. Replacing Bo Ryan was never going to be easy, but Gard has kept Wisconsin winning.
In Other News...
Gophers Let St. Thomas Make This Rivalry Opener Uncomfortable
The first meeting between Minnesota and St. Thomas as Division I programs in nearly a century had the feel of a neighborhood rivalry finally getting its long-awaited stage. Minnesota hosted the Tommies in a regular-season game and came away with a 76-62 win, but it was not the kind of comfortable night the Gophers might have wanted in front of a familiar crowd.
St. Thomas made things interesting with a second-half comeback attempt before Minnesota steadied itself at the line and closed it out. Isaac Asuma led all scorers with 20 points, and the Gophers free throw shooting proved to be one of the difference-makers in a game that briefly threatened to turn into a much messier opener than expected. [Read more 🡒]
Minnesota Let A Huge Upset Chance Slip Away Late Against UCLA
Minnesota had a real shot to turn a big home opportunity into something even bigger, but the game slipped away late against No. 5 UCLA. The Gophers were still hanging around before Ty Dieffenbach flipped the momentum in the fourth quarter, connecting with Aidan Mizell on a pair of long touchdown strikes that helped the Bruins pull away for a 34-20 win and stay unbeaten atop the Big Ten.
The loss will sting for Minnesota because the defense had kept things within reach, and the offense never found enough answers after halftime. Wayne Knight added 109 rushing yards and his 15th touchdown of the season for UCLA, while the Gophers also left points on the field when Luke Drzewiecki missed two long field-goal tries, a costly detail in a game that was still there to be taken. [Read more 🡒]
Gophers Turned A Winnable Night Into A Troubling Defensive Warning
Minnesota had a chance to turn a solid night into a statement win after clawing back to tie UCLA at 17-17 in the fourth quarter, but the game slipped away in a hurry from there. The Gophers could not keep the Bruins from finding space downfield, and a defense that had been hanging on suddenly looked vulnerable in the kind of situation that tends to linger long after the final whistle.
The bigger concern is how quickly UCLA was able to flip the game with explosive plays, exposing Minnesotas secondary when the pressure was highest. Add in the missed long kicks that left points on the field and the loss starts to feel less like a simple setback and more like a warning sign, the sort of night that forces a team to look hard at what went wrong before the next one arrives. [Read more 🡒]