MBB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[Tigerfan]

Tom Palombo's departure from GC was announced on 4/8.  It appears that the Quakers might be having some difficulty in getting the position filled.  This article discusses GC's current difficulties.  I thought that former Quaker star player and current outstanding Hampden-Sydney assistant coach Carson Long would have been a no-brainer. 

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ That's a REALLY long article. I read the first part, then scrolled down and kept scrolling and scrolling. Sure hope Guilford comes out of this ok.

[Tigerfan]

For the TLDR crowd:  GC's financial management has been dysfunctional for a long time and now they are in a very tight spot.

[Macon]

There's a lot of bad news in the Guilford article.  I remember three years ago that GC was having issues, but I had no idea that the situation was as dire as this article outlined.  Good luck to them.

[Macon]

As to their basketball front, not having a coach this time of year has to be playing havoc for recruiting and even returning players.  Quite a possible downfall for a program that was in Final Four just a year ago.

[Ron Boerger]

FWIW, here is how I summarized that lengthy Guilford article over on the Future of Division III thread:

A long read on the financial issues at Guilford College, which according to the article faces a loss of accreditation if it doesn't balance its budget by June 30th.  The school has seen a 40% decline in enrollment over the last eight years while expenses declined only 1%.  Among many other issues, the school is in default of agreements to maintain  net operating revenues of at least 1.25 times higher than annual debt service payments and the primary bondholder could demand immediate repayment of $60M in debt at any time.  The bank has agreed not to seek repayment at this time while the school works with an independent consultant to address the situation; if the work fails, the bonds could become callable.

The path forward is complicated by two sets of stakeholders:  those who believe the Quaker-affiliated church should take an approach focused on Quaker values, "with a flattened hierarchy and emphasis on a deliberative approach", and those who take a more more typical business focus, selling or monetizing excess land owned by the school, cutting costs and the like.

For the tax year ending June 30, 2023, the school lost over $11M on revenues of nearly $62M and had liabilities of nearly $82M offset by assets of $205M.  The most recent audit from 2024 shows significant deficiency in internal controls, but also showed a suprisingly high $17+M (realized and unrealized) return on a $76.7M investment portfolio, of which the school used nearly $10M for operations. [/url]

[Seatfiller]

As to their basketball front, not having a coach this time of year has to be playing havoc for recruiting and even returning players.  Quite a possible downfall for a program that was in Final Four just a year ago.

I wouldn't be surprsied to hear that a good amount of thier players aren't coming back.  They have no head coach and their school might not be running too much longer.

[Ron Boerger]

As to their basketball front, not having a coach this time of year has to be playing havoc for recruiting and even returning players.  Quite a possible downfall for a program that was in Final Four just a year ago.

I wouldn't be surprsied to hear that a good amount of thier players aren't coming back.  They have no head coach and their school might not be running too much longer.

You would think so, but consider the case of Birmingham-Southern, who retained a great many of their student-athletes to the very end despite news that was even more dire and managed to have its baseball team compete in the D3 CWS after the school had formally closed.