Report: Arizona men’s basketball roster spending trails top programs

Arizona men’s basketball’s budget for building a Final Four-caliber team is significant, but the UA is far from one of the top spenders in the sport, according to a new report on roster spending.

Arizona will spend approximately $15-17.5 million on its men’s basketball roster, CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander and Isaac Trotter reported this week. That puts Arizona in the third tier of roster budgets alongside the likes of Gonzaga, Houston, Michigan State and others.

CBS Sports spoke with more than 100 sources across college sports for the report, which seeks to do the same for college basketball as The Athletic recently did for college football. Arizona football’s roster spend is approximately $13-20 million, putting the program in the same ballpark as men’s basketball despite employing dozens fewer players.

The CBS Sports report all but confirms that Tommy Lloyd’s program is a step behind most college basketball blue bloods when it comes to investment.

While Arizona’s spend is above the Big 12 average of $12.7 million, the UA trails at least 15 other programs in how much it’s paying players for the 2026-27 season.

Eleven schools are in the top tier of spenders, paying $20+ million for rosters. The list includes one Big 12 school, Texas Tech, and two teams that made last year’s Final Four: Michigan and Illinois. The top tier also features traditional powers Duke, Louisville, Kentucky and North Carolina, and athletic powerhouses Texas and Florida.

The next tier consists of Arkansas, Kansas, Indiana and UConn. Those four programs reportedly spent just under $20 million.

Arizona reportedly doesn’t have the resources to spend at the same level as those aforementioned programs, most of whom can’t match the Wildcats’ recent on-court successes.

Arizona’s tier consists of a dozen or so programs that lack the success established not only by Lloyd but also his predecessor, Sean Miller.

Other Tier 3 spenders include: Auburn, LSU, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt (all of the SEC). The Big 12’s Cincinnati and Oklahoma State also fall into Tier 3, as do Miami of the ACC and USC of the Big Ten.

That’s good company to be in, but it’s certainly not elite.

It’s worth noting too that there are several programs that spend less than Arizona but have made recent Final Fours pre- and post-NIL. They include Alabama, Baylor, Purdue, UCLA, Villanova and Virginia.

The list is a reminder that spending big on players can only take a program so far.