NCAA basketball: Top 25 highest-paid college basketball coaches for 2020

17. Scott Drew, Baylor

Salary: $3,308,435 | Buyout: N/A

It may have included a bit of nepotism when Scott Drew got his first college basketball coaching job. While he was a student at Butler, he served as a student manager with the Bulldogs. Upon his graduation, however, Drew went to work as an assistant under his father, Homer Drew, at Valparaiso starting in 1993.

Drew held that position under his father for nine seasons and actually took over the Crusaders team in the 2002-03 season when Homer retired. However, Drew was only in that position for one year. That’s when Baylor basketball, wrapped in a scandal at the time, saw Dave Bliss resign and needed someone to restore the integrity and quality of the program.

Handicapped by an NCAA probation that limited recruiting and postseason play, the Bears struggled early on in Drew’s tenure. He went 8-21, 9-19, 4-13 (limited to only Big 12 games) and 15-16 in Drew’s first four seasons from 2003-07. Since then, however, he’s built quite a successful program in Waco.

In the 13 seasons since that period, Baylor has won fewer than 20 games just once while making it to eight NCAA Tournaments, four Sweet 16s and two Elite Eights. Furthermore, he had the Bears at 26-4 in the 2019-20 season and primed to make noise in March Madness again. Considering the situation when Drew started, it’s difficult to argue that he’s worth the money.