Buffs men’s basketball budget lags behind their power-conference brethren

Another CU Buffs men’s basketball season fell short of the NCAA Tournament last week, with Selection Sunday officially placing CU and its No. 76 NET ranking on the outside looking in once again, although its season will continue in the College Basketball Crown.

The field is set for 2026! 👑
Tickets available via @vividseats
now. pic.twitter.com/R61yF7mqOo

— College Basketball Crown (@CBBCrown) March 16, 2026

It’s the fourth time in the last five years that Tad Boyle’s team has missed out on March Madness, and after hitting the 20-win threshold in nine of his first 11 seasons in Boulder, the Buffs have failed to reach that mark in four of the last five campaigns, only doing so in their most-recent tourney season of 2024.

And in in the Big XII, 20 wins and participation in the NCAA Tournament is a fair baseline goal and standard for success. The conference has sent eight, seven and eight schools to the Big Dance since becoming a supersized league three seasons ago. And early in Boyle’s tenure, the Buffs made three-consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (2012-14).

Sure, it’s been rare in CU’s history. Prior to that three-season run, one has to go back to the salad days of Sox Walseth for the last previous years with consecutive tournament appearances (1962-63). But in a vacuum, four seasons in five outside of the tournament and with fewer than 20 wins isn’t good enough.

However, something else is working against the Buffs: their budget.

In a conference that features some programs with bazookas, CU wields a pistol.

BUFFS’ BUDGET AT THE BOTTOM OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS MEASURED IN POWER CONFERENCES

As Matt Brown of the Extra Points newsletter reported, CU’s men’s basketball budget for the 2025 fiscal year — essentially the 2024-25 season (July 1, 2024-June 30, 2025) — was $8,608,359.

Sounds like plenty, right? Not in the Big XII, it wasn’t.

Among the 12 Big XII schools for which Brown was able to obtain data through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), CU’s men’s basketball budget was 12th. Further, the budget ranked 51st of the 51 power-conference programs for which Brown received data.

The sample size covered fully-public institutions. Private schools such as Baylor, TCU and Brigham Young University within the Big XII don’t have to comply with the FOIA; some, including conference member Central Florida, are exempt from public-records laws.

good morning I FOIA'd the operational budget for more than 200 MBB programs

Here's who spends the most, the least, who gets the most (wins) out of the least money, and what you need to spend to make it deep in March:

(full data in link below) pic.twitter.com/xejiaetO4D

— Matt Brown (@MattBrownEP) March 16, 2026

The Buffs’ men’s-hoops budget trailed two schools outside of power conferences: Memphis in the American Conference ($10.78 million) and San Diego State of the Mountain West Conference ($9.11 million).

CU’s budget was nearly even with that of South Florida, which won the one-bid American Conference title Sunday. USF’s budget of $8,557,401 was $40,958 below that of the Buffs.

The next-closest power-conference and Big XII budget to CU was Oklahoma State, which was $922,206 above the Buffs at $9.31 million. But CU’s budget sat closer to Atlantic 10 schools Rhode Island ($7.86 million) and VCU ($7.82 million) than to its nearest conference rival for which information was publicly available.

STACKING UP CU WIHTIN THE BIG XII

The average budget was $13,148,101. Spiking that was Arizona; its colossal $22.6-million outlay for men’s basketball was third-highest among those schools with reported figures, trailing only Indiana ($32.04 million) and Tennessee ($23.18 million).

The only other Big XII programs in the top 20 of men’s basketball budgets were Kansas ($19.73 million, 11th) and Texas Tech ($16.60 million, 17th).

BIG XII MEN’S BASKETBALL BUDGETS, 2025 FISCAL YEAR:

Arizona: $22,608,493
Kansas: $19,732,079
Texas Tech: $16,600,424
Houston: $14,626,221
Cincinnati: $11,883,407
Kansas State: $11,464,762
Utah: $11,191,830
West Virginia: $10,766,985
Iowa State: $10,578,135
Arizona State: $10,185,948
Oklahoma State: $9,530,565
Colorado: $8,608,359

(No data submitted for Baylor, Brigham Young, Central Florida and TCU.)

AVERAGE MEN’S BASKETBALL BUDGET, 2025 FISCAL YEAR (AMONG SCHOOLS WITH DATA SUBMITTED):

SEC: $16.40 million (data from 14 schools measured)
Big Ten: $16.14 million (16 schools)
ACC: $14.97 million (eight schools)
Big XII: $13.15 million (12 schools)
Atlantic 10: $7.25 million (four schools)
American: $5.89 million (nine schools)
Mountain West: $5.78 million (10 schools)
MAC: $3.40 million (13 schools)
Coastal: $3.39 million (six schools)
Sun Belt: $3.35 million (12 schools)
C-USA: $3.30 million (six schools)
Missouri Valley: $3.28 million (six schools)

(The Big East has just one public school, Connecticut; its budget was $21.55 million, fifth-highest among all schools measured.)

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