Associated Press
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Missouri men's basketball coach Mike Anderson has opted for loyalty over the bottom line, passing up a sizable raise offered by Georgia to instead sign a new seven-year contract with the school he helped lead to the brink of the Final Four.
The announcement Tuesday night caps a whirlwind couple of days for the university and for Anderson, who had also been linked to the coaching vacancy at Memphis created by John Calipari's move to Kentucky.
The university said financial details of the new deal will be announced later. Anderson, who was hired in 2006, previously earned a base annual salary of $850,000.
"We are excited Coach Anderson is going to be at the University of Missouri for a long time," said athletics director Mike Alden. "He's done a tremendous job rebuilding our basketball tradition and is poised to lead our program to new heights in the coming years."
A source familiar with the contract negotiations who requested anonymity to avoid contradicting the university's public statement said that Anderson will earn a base salary of $1.3 million. Anderson's Missouri predecessor, former Duke assistant Quin Snyder, earned a base salary of $1.015 million before he was fired three years ago.
The deal comes after Georgia re-portedly discussed paying Anderson a base salary more than $2 million a year, according to a source with knowledge of the offer.
In his third year with the Tigers, Anderson led a team picked by his coaching colleagues to finish seventh in the Big 12 Conference to a school-record 31 wins, the Big 12 tournament title and its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2003. The Tigers advanced to the West Regional final before losing to top-seeded Connecticut.
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