'Tell us what you need.' Mitch Barnhart adamant about keeping Kentucky WBB competitive in revenue-sharing era

Revenue-sharing has been the topic of the summer. How do Mitch Barnhart and UK divide the $18 million after scholarships between its sports? It’s no secret that football is king in the SEC, but at Kentucky, basketball is royalty. There were a lot of things that Barnhart hit on in his interview with KSR, but among the topics was women’s basketball.

Fresh off an $82 million renovation to Historic Memorial Coliseum and giving Kenny Brooks one of the top ten most lucrative contracts in the sport, it’s clear that UK is making women’s basketball a priority moving forward.

So, how does UK divvy up the money? While Barnhart elected not to reveal any exact numbers, he did make sure to note that the women’s basketball program is going to have all the money and resources it needs in order to be competitive.

“We absolutely are going to have to make some roster choices, but I want to make sure we’re in conversation with all of our coaches at that point, and we have been,” Barnhart said on the KSR radio show. “They’ve been awesome — let me repeat — incredible. I mean, the ability to sit down with both Marks and sit here and say, ‘Hey, this is where we are’ — Kenny Brooks and women’s basketball. He’s in the recruiting process, ‘Mitch, what do we say’, and well, ‘What do you need? Tell us what you need’.”

The method to Barnhart’s madness comes from Rob Mullens, who now serves as the athletic director at Oregon. In short, Barnhart is going to make sure that Kenny Brooks and the women’s basketball program are going to get whatever they feel they need in order to chase championships.

“Rob Mullens, who was my deputy a long, long time ago… So, Rob always had a great line: matching resources to expectations,” Barnhart said. “So, what are the expectations and what are the resources we
need to match to those? I think we’ve done a really, really good job of matching resources to expectations for our coaches, and they’ve been able to go out. It’s clear, it’s been successful in recruiting. Our coaches have been able to bring in the rosters that they wanted to bring in, and as we look forward, they’re all saying the same thing. We’re in a good spot.”

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