Update: After this story was published, the Big 12 released a statement saying that the “two-year revenue distribution phase-ins for BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF remain unchanged by the Big 12’s expansion to 16 members.” That directly contradicts what Mack Rhoades said on SicEm365’s YouTube show.

UH is scheduled to make $18,000,000 this season and $19,000,000 next year. What Rhoades said would have meant the $19 million would have grown to $31 million. In essence, this means about $12 million less for UH than what Rhoades claimed.

We’ve left the story below unchanged for the full context:
 

UH Basketball gets a masterclass in international basketball, courtesy of the Australian National Team. Mack Rhoades confirms that all Big 12 members will get full shares of the conference media deal beginning in 2024, a year earlier than UH had previously agreed.
 

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“Every once in a while, I’d have to take a beating. But by then, I didn’t care. The way I saw it, everybody takes a beating sometime.” – Henry Hill in Goodfellas.

Learning Experience. The Houston Cougars were trounced by the Australian National Team on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning in Australia), 99-65. The Aussies did not wear numbers on their jerseys, and their individual stats were not kept. UH’s stats in the game were released:

PDF box score here.

What can you take from that? J’Wan Roberts not even attempting a shot? Shead, Sharp, Dunn, and Wilson combining to shoot 10/43 (23.3%)?

Key Stat: 112 of UH’s 200 minutes in the game were from players that did not play for UH last spring (Cryer, Walker, Dunn, McFarland, Wilson, Tugler). Walker played in 10 early games but ended up redshirting.

Kelvin Sampson has said he wanted this game for the experience of playing against a polished team of NBA guys. After the game, Kelvin was pleased with what had transpired. A few of his quotes from the postgame:

“It was awesome…You can tell those (the National Team) are grown men.”

“The best team I’ve had here at Houston would probably lose by 25 or so to that team.”

“It ain’t about the score discrepancy or who played good or who played bad. You’re just glad they played us.”

“I wish we played them again…there’s so much to learn from this game.”

“We’re just a long way away from being a team.”

“All these experiences collectively, good and bad, are all things designed to help us to be the best we can be once we get to November and December.”

Perspective: 10 years ago, many of these guys wouldn’t even be on campus in early August. This team has gone through extensive summer workouts and ten practices and is now playing games and having serious team-building time before the fall semester even starts. 30+ point loss or not, this was a win.
 

Full Share. David Smoak runs a popular Baylor website called SicEm365 and has a great show on YouTube. Baylor AD Mack Rhoades is a frequent guest on the show and Tuesday, he told Smoak that all 16 Big 12 members will receive full shares of the media deal beginning in 2024.

“All 16 of us will be created equal in terms of conference revenue distribution,” Rhoades said. “And I know that was really important to all of our members.

“We all think that’s the best thing for us to have: cohesion and unity moving forward.”

Why it matters: This is better than the deal UH signed when entering the league. Under the previous terms, UH would not receive a full share until 2025.

Since UH signed on with the Big 12, the league has moved from a position of weakness to the driver’s seat, resulting in better outcomes for UH, BYU, Cincinnati, and UCF. Some combination of the media rights deal, the four 2023 new members agreeing to go along with further expansion, and the Big 12 needing to guarantee a full share to the 2024 new members (Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah) resulted in uniformity beginning when the new 16-member league debuts.

There are so many questions: did the new 2023 members play hardball? Did they band together to protect their interests? Did Yormark and the league offer an earlier full share as a concession? Did BYU require some additional protections with the addition of Utah? Did the Pac-12 schools want (need?) everyone to be treated equally, after life in a conference where USC and UCLA constantly demanded more of the media dollars?

All in all, excellent news for UH Athletics.
 

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Full coverage of UH’s trip to Australia