Bobby Hurley agrees in principle to contract extension with Buffalo, will still interview with DePaul

In two seasons Bobby Hurley brought two division championships, helped develop two conference Players of the Year, and of course took Buffalo dancing for the first time in the school's history. All of this is on top of the publicity brought to the University and the department's desire to establish itself as a major player in New York State athletics.

So it's not surprising that the University renegotiated Hurley's contract in hopes of keeping the UB coach in Amherst for a while longer.

Shortly after UB defeated Bowling Green to earn the #2 seed in this seasons Mid American conference it was announced that Buffalo and Hurley began working on extending and enhancing Hurley's deal.

The terms of the new agreement are not yet public but White's philosophy has been to pay his coaches with incentives. If a coach gets top results he should be paid as a top coach.

For example. By winning the MAC East and then the regular season tournament Hurley added $41,000 dollars to his salary this year. He will also take home 25% of net ticket revenue in excess of 300,000 dollars. This is on top of his 300,000 dollar base salary.

One would expect the new contract would bring his base salary inline with the base pay of other top MAC coaches yet to keep a lot of the incentives in place. Mark Gaughan of the Buffalo News reports the contract would place him above Ohio's Saul Phillips as the highest-paid coach in the MAC.

One further detail floating out from TBN is that "All of the increased money UB would give Hurley was raised from university donors over the past two or three weeks." This means that the department used the buzz around UB's first NCAA trip and the funding mechanisms set up by Danny White to increase the coach's salary.

It won't be enough to stop a basketball powerhouse from poaching the Buffalo coach but it may insulate the school from most other mid majors.

For now, national media is adamant that Hurley is still set to interview with DePaul today. It seems that the fast-rising coach is gauging his options after having to quickly settle down from the postseason whirlwind.