Coach Binford Signs 4 Year Contract Extension

[imacat]

This has to have its own thread. Awesome news!!!

[mslacatfan]

Huge news!

[BelgradeBobcat]

Just give her all the money. Let her be president as a side job!

[MSU01]

Obviously well deserved! I have to wonder if other teams may have been contacting her to see if she'd have any interest in moving on from MSU and this was a preemptive move to shut that down right away.

[Bobcat4Ever]

Congratulations, Coach Bin! I was at your public interview session at the Stadium. You were three out of three, and you sold me on the spot. You knew your basketball. You had a plan, and you’ve been true to your word. You were kind to the team you inherited, even at the expense of a game or two on your win-loss record. And when you were asked your best moments of the WNBA you said just hanging with your teammates — shopping may have been involved! I knew then the players would be in much better hands than they had been. I was pleased when I heard you had been hired. Thank you for your excellent program stocked with excellent student / people / players. I’m proud to be a fan.

[lutecat]

I totally agree this needs it's own thread!

Great news!

[Catfanatic84]

Great news and well deserved!

[AFCAT]

Obviously well deserved! I have to wonder if other teams may have been contacting her to see if she'd have any interest in moving on from MSU and this was a preemptive move to shut that down right away.

Well, she could still leave for another job, the new school would just have to pay the buy out. I think after 20 years, she isn’t going anywhere though. I hope she got a nice pay raise.

[imacat]

Congratulations, Coach Bin! I was at your public interview session at the Stadium. You were three out of three, and you sold me on the spot. You knew your basketball. You had a plan, and you’ve been true to your word. You were kind to the team you inherited, even at the expense of a game or two on your win-loss record. And when you were asked your best moments of the WNBA you said just hanging with your teammates — shopping may have been involved! I knew then the players would be in much better hands than they had been. I was pleased when I heard you had been hired. Thank you for your excellent program stocked with excellent student / people / players. I’m proud to be a fan.

This is interesting. Peter Fields would conduct public interviews for the coaching vacancy finalists.
I did not attend Binford’s but I did stream it. Like you, I thought Binford was head and shoulders above the other candidates. She has delivered big time. We are blessed to have her.

[lutecat]

Congratulations, Coach Bin! I was at your public interview session at the Stadium. You were three out of three, and you sold me on the spot. You knew your basketball. You had a plan, and you’ve been true to your word. You were kind to the team you inherited, even at the expense of a game or two on your win-loss record. And when you were asked your best moments of the WNBA you said just hanging with your teammates — shopping may have been involved! I knew then the players would be in much better hands than they had been. I was pleased when I heard you had been hired. Thank you for your excellent program stocked with excellent student / people / players. I’m proud to be a fan.

This is interesting. Peter Fields would conduct public interviews for the coaching vacancy finalists.
I did not attend Binford’s but I did stream it. Like you, I thought Binford was head and shoulders above the other candidates. She has delivered big time. We are blessed to have her.

Who were the other candidates?

[Joe Bobcat]

Congratulations, Coach Bin! I was at your public interview session at the Stadium. You were three out of three, and you sold me on the spot. You knew your basketball. You had a plan, and you’ve been true to your word. You were kind to the team you inherited, even at the expense of a game or two on your win-loss record. And when you were asked your best moments of the WNBA you said just hanging with your teammates — shopping may have been involved! I knew then the players would be in much better hands than they had been. I was pleased when I heard you had been hired. Thank you for your excellent program stocked with excellent student / people / players. I’m proud to be a fan.

This is interesting. Peter Fields would conduct public interviews for the coaching vacancy finalists.
I did not attend Binford’s but I did stream it. Like you, I thought Binford was head and shoulders above the other candidates. She has delivered big time. We are blessed to have her.

Who were the other candidates?

I was wondering that a little while back and came across this.
https://msubobcats.com/news/2005/3/30/5576704144
At the very least there's one interesting name among those.

[AFCAT]

Jaime White

https://gobulldogs.com/staff-directory/jaime-white/13

[MSU01]

Congratulations, Coach Bin! I was at your public interview session at the Stadium. You were three out of three, and you sold me on the spot. You knew your basketball. You had a plan, and you’ve been true to your word. You were kind to the team you inherited, even at the expense of a game or two on your win-loss record. And when you were asked your best moments of the WNBA you said just hanging with your teammates — shopping may have been involved! I knew then the players would be in much better hands than they had been. I was pleased when I heard you had been hired. Thank you for your excellent program stocked with excellent student / people / players. I’m proud to be a fan.

This is interesting. Peter Fields would conduct public interviews for the coaching vacancy finalists.
I did not attend Binford’s but I did stream it. Like you, I thought Binford was head and shoulders above the other candidates. She has delivered big time. We are blessed to have her.

Who were the other candidates?

I was wondering that a little while back and came across this.
https://msubobcats.com/news/2005/3/30/5576704144
At the very least there's one interesting name among those.

From what I recall at the time, Coach Smallwood was considered by many as the favorite to get the job as she had quite a bit more experience than the other candidates. Funny how things work out, Tricia and Sunny make a great team now and both appear to be quite happy where they are.

[aucat]

She came into a pretty tough situation and those first few years had some big bumps. She has built the program to where it is today. I would think that she has a leg up when it comes to recruiting because how many other mid major programs have the fan support that MSU has? Everything about MSU today is first class and President Waded Cruazado gets a lot of credit for that.

[CodyCat]

How much does she make?

[MSU01]

How much does she make?

Most recent information I could find is from 2023 when her base salary was $189K. I assume that doesn't include incentives and bonuses which likely put her well over $200K. I don't believe salary details of the new contract have been publicized yet.

https://openpayrolls.com/rank/highest-p ... university

[AFCAT]

[Bobcat4Ever]

Congratulations, Coach Bin! I was at your public interview session at the Stadium. You were three out of three, and you sold me on the spot. You knew your basketball. You had a plan, and you’ve been true to your word. You were kind to the team you inherited, even at the expense of a game or two on your win-loss record. And when you were asked your best moments of the WNBA you said just hanging with your teammates — shopping may have been involved! I knew then the players would be in much better hands than they had been. I was pleased when I heard you had been hired. Thank you for your excellent program stocked with excellent student / people / players. I’m proud to be a fan.

This is interesting. Peter Fields would conduct public interviews for the coaching vacancy finalists.
I did not attend Binford’s but I did stream it. Like you, I thought Binford was head and shoulders above the other candidates. She has delivered big time. We are blessed to have her.

Who were the other candidates?

It was the campus policy to have a public interview session for most positions that were supervisory or professional in nature. So nothing unusual about this for Basketball.

(I might have the order of 1 and 2 reversed.)

Candidate 1 — Sunny Smallwood. Her typical very quiet, very precise self — but I thought a very good assistant coach but without the fire and the public salesmanship that a head coach needs. Ironic that she came back here, but she was also part of the Jane Daugherty coaching tree with Trish Binford. My response form said do not hire for head coach.

Candidate 2 — Jaime White. If I remember correctly coming off a couple of 30-win seasons at Snow Canyon in Utah. Excellent public persona behind the mic. I remember thinking how entertaining a comedy duo that she and Mike Kramer would make. Super energetic, positive, successful. I gave her some mighty good reviews and a do hire recommendation.

Candidate 3 — Tricia Bader-Binford assistant coach under Regan Pebly at Utah State. Tasked with reviving the program. Trish got off to a bit of a slow start, but when she pulled out her “plan” — a notebook on her plans to be a head coach — the passion started to flow and she was off and running. She also convinced me that she was a player oriented coach with an open door who would make sure her “kids” studied, learned basketball, played hard, were treated fairly, and had fun. Our team needed that. Tracy Sheehan. Maybe the worst hire ever. Abused her players. Robin Potera. Enough said. Trish inherited Scotta Morton who was so shell-shocked that she made it her life work to make things better for people in sports.

I wrote on my form, forget Coach White, hire Coach Bader-Binford if possible. Sometimes you just know it when you see it.

[MSU01]

Hiring Binford back in 2005 when she was a relatively obscure assistant barely into her 30s might turn out to be the best coaching hire MSU has ever made in any sport. Nobody will ever catch Robin Selvig for career wins but at the same time it's hard to think anyone will ever catch Coach Binford for second place. She has at least another decade of coaching ahead of her and has only gotten better and better over the course of her career at MSU. Since Selvig retired in 2016, MSU has totally turned around the rivalry with a 16-3 head to head record against UM and four Big Sky Championships compared to zero for the Griz.

[lutecat]

Congratulations, Coach Bin! I was at your public interview session at the Stadium. You were three out of three, and you sold me on the spot. You knew your basketball. You had a plan, and you’ve been true to your word. You were kind to the team you inherited, even at the expense of a game or two on your win-loss record. And when you were asked your best moments of the WNBA you said just hanging with your teammates — shopping may have been involved! I knew then the players would be in much better hands than they had been. I was pleased when I heard you had been hired. Thank you for your excellent program stocked with excellent student / people / players. I’m proud to be a fan.

This is interesting. Peter Fields would conduct public interviews for the coaching vacancy finalists.
I did not attend Binford’s but I did stream it. Like you, I thought Binford was head and shoulders above the other candidates. She has delivered big time. We are blessed to have her.

Who were the other candidates?

It was the campus policy to have a public interview session for most positions that were supervisory or professional in nature. So nothing unusual about this for Basketball.

(I might have the order of 1 and 2 reversed.)

Candidate 1 — Sunny Smallwood. Her typical very quiet, very precise self — but I thought a very good assistant coach but without the fire and the public salesmanship that a head coach needs. Ironic that she came back here, but she was also part of the Jane Daugherty coaching tree with Trish Binford. My response form said do not hire for head coach.

Candidate 2 — Jaime White. If I remember correctly coming off a couple of 30-win seasons at Snow Canyon in Utah. Excellent public persona behind the mic. I remember thinking how entertaining a comedy duo that she and Mike Kramer would make. Super energetic, positive, successful. I gave her some mighty good reviews and a do hire recommendation.

Candidate 3 — Tricia Bader-Binford assistant coach under Regan Pebly at Utah State. Tasked with reviving the program. Trish got off to a bit of a slow start, but when she pulled out her “plan” — a notebook on her plans to be a head coach — the passion started to flow and she was off and running. She also convinced me that she was a player oriented coach with an open door who would make sure her “kids” studied, learned basketball, played hard, were treated fairly, and had fun. Our team needed that. Tracy Sheehan. Maybe the worst hire ever. Abused her players. Robin Potera. Enough said. Trish inherited Scotta Morton who was so shell-shocked that she made it her life work to make things better for people in sports.

I wrote on my form, forget Coach White, hire Coach Bader-Binford if possible. Sometimes you just know it when you see it.

I got curious and looked up White. Looks like she just stepped down from coaching at Fresno state. So things turned out alright for her too.

https://gobulldogs.com/news/2025/3/24/w ... steps-down