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I've wondered throughout this whole process what type of commitment was going to be given to Chris Collins, and, from the looks of it, it's a pretty big one.
From David Kaplan of CSN, who has been pretty on top of everything in this whole process:
Chris Collins deal at NU will be 7 yrs with a very competitive salary. Big time commitment from Jim Phillips and Co.
— David Kaplan (@thekapman) March 28, 2013
Seven years is a long time. We might not be completely satisfied by Chris Collins in the next seven years. Rarely do things happen right away, especially not in college basketball. If Collins can't do something right away with Drew Crawford - probably the best shot he'll have will be right away, as none of the guys in the classes of 2015-2016 seem particularly special - probably talking 2-3 years for Chris Collins to get his guys in the program, then another two or three for those guys to develop, and all of a sudden we're five years down the road and just gearing up to make the NCAA Tournament. If that doesn't look like it's happening by then, it might be time to talk about the end of the now-nascent Collins era, but my point is, we're talking about a decent chunk of time here. NU needed to go big on the commitment to earn the coach they wanted, and since that wasn't necessarily going to mean huge dollars per year, it might as well mean dollars over a long period of time.
As for the actual number on that salary, someone mentioned $1.3 million in the comments section, which would sound "very competitive," but I haven't seen any confirmation on that number from Kaplan or anybody else. I might have missed him saying it on TV, though.
Incidentally, that means that contract runs out in 2019-2020 - right about the same timeframe as the end of Pat Fitzgerald's longterm contract extension from two years ago.