CBS Sports’ deep dive into high-major basketball spending offered a rare look at where the money is going in the NIL era, and it also revealed which coaches are squeezing the most out of every dollar. The investigation by Matt Norlander and Isaac Trotter sorts programs into spending tiers for the 2026-27 season, and the names near the top of the overperformance list all share the same trait: they’re winning big without living in the sport’s richest neighborhoods.
Purdue’s Matt Painter stands out first. The Boilermakers landed in Tier 6, which runs from $7.1 million to $9.9 million, placing them alongside schools such as Utah, Northwestern, DePaul and Penn State.
Even so, Painter keeps Purdue playing like a far more expensive roster. The report points to Purdue’s continuity as a foundation, and the broader point is hard to miss: no one else in Tier 6 is close to the Boilermakers in program quality.
The only school in Tier 5 that can really compare is Iowa State.
Nate Oats follows at No. 2, and Alabama’s placement is a reminder of how much he has done with less than most of the SEC. Of the league’s 16 schools, 13 sit at least one tier above the Crimson Tide in spending.
Alabama is grouped with Mississippi State, but Oats has taken the program to a Final Four in 2024, pushed it beyond the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament in each of the past four years and delivered league titles in 2021 and 2023. The Tide have also never been worse than a No. 6 seed under him.
Add in five first-round NBA picks, and the development piece is right there too.
TJ Otzelberger lands at No. 3, and his Iowa State run has become one of the clearest success stories in the sport. He enters Year 6 having gone 5 for 5 on NCAA Tournament trips, with three Sweet 16s and three straight seasons of a No. 3 seed or better.
That’s even more striking considering what he inherited: a program that had gone 2-22 the year before he arrived from South Dakota State. He immediately built an elite defense around a roster ranked No. 340 in KenPom’s minutes continuity metric and took the Cyclones to the Sweet 16.
His 2026-27 team is ranked No. 12 in Gary Parrish’s Top 25 And 1.
Fred Hoiberg checks in at No. 4 after quietly changing Nebraska’s basketball profile. The Cornhuskers’ spot in Tier 5 fits a football-first school with little tradition on the hardwood, and before this past season they had never won an NCAA Tournament game. What Hoiberg has done over the past three years still jumps off the page: Nebraska has posted 20-plus wins in three straight seasons for the first time ever, and it has reached at least two NCAA Tournaments in a three-year span for the first time since the early 1990s.
Ben McCollum is next at No. 5, and even with only one season to judge, the early signs are loud. He guided Iowa to a stunning Elite Eight in his first year, and the expectation here is that the Hawkeyes could become a real Big Ten presence.
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’s offseason didn’t generate much buzz, but that’s kind of the point in this part of the sport: the job is to build more than the budget suggests.
Kyle Smith comes in at No. 6 after two seasons at Stanford, where the Cardinal are 41-27 and 20-18 in ACC play while operating on one of the lowest budgets among high-major programs. Stanford just missed the 2026 NCAA Tournament, but Smith has already overshot expectations in a major way. One Cardinal team finished 18 spots above its preseason KenPom projection, and last year’s squad finished 27 spots higher than expected.
Jamie Dixon is No. 7, and his work at TCU remains steady if not flashy. He has taken the Horned Frogs to four of the past five NCAA Tournaments after the program had reached just one Big Dance in the previous 30 years before his arrival. TCU hasn’t broken through past the opening weekend, but Dixon keeps putting together tough, competitive teams on modest resources.
Ryan Odom slots in at No. 8 after an immediate splash at Virginia. He won 30 games in his first season, earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and helped the Cavaliers finish No. 17 in KenPom after beginning the year at No.
- That’s exactly the kind of jump that makes a coach stand out in a spending conversation.
Georgia’s Mike White is No. 9.
The Bulldogs rank last in SEC spending, according to the investigation, yet White has led them to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time since the early 2000s. Getting to 10-8 in league play with a roster in the $10 million to $12 million range says plenty about what he’s getting out of that group.
Greg Gard rounds out the top 10. Replacing Bo Ryan was never going to be simple, and his Wisconsin tenure has had its bumps, but the results over the last three seasons are strong: 73-35 overall and 38-22 in the Big Ten, all while operating outside the top half of the league in spending. The Badgers have also beaten preseason expectations in a big way in 2025 and have earned a No. 5 seed or better in each of the past three NCAA Tournaments.
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