Matt L. Stephens

matthewstephens@coloradoan.com

Lock him up.

It’s been less than two years since Ryun Williams signed his five-year contract with CSU, and it’s already time for a new one.

We’re days away from riding the women’s college basketball coaching carousel, and one name that should be on the radar of any Power 5 school looking to make a change is Williams.

The fourth-year Colorado State University coach is leading the Rams into the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2002, learning Monday his team has earned a No. 11 seed and will play No. 6 South Florida in the opening round, He has three consecutive Mountain West regular-season championships (plus one postseason championship) to his name. No other school in league history has won three consecutive outright regular-season titles.

You’d think he’d be the highest-paid coach in the conference.

You’d think that. And you’d be wrong.

Williams’ annual salary of $219,300 ranks second in the Mountain West behind New Mexico’s Yvonne Sanchez ($266,640 salary; $302,640 total pay), who, in five seasons, has a 77-80 record and not even a trip to the WNIT. Williams needed less than three seasons to accrue more wins, and the only time he’s lost more than eight games in a season was Year 1, when the Rams went 11-19.

Senior guard Jamie Patrick was hesitant to call Williams the best coach she’s ever played for. Then again, her dad, Erin, was her coach at Central Christian High School in Hutchinson, Kansas. But Williams is at least top two, and it's his loose nature that's allowed him, and the Rams, to prosper.

RAMS: CSU faces South Florida to open NCAA tournament

“What he does is give us free rein. He always tells me to keep shooting when I don’t believe in myself. He believes in every single one of us,” said Patrick, an often-deadly 3-point shooter who went 3 of 8 in the Mountain West championship game. “I’ve never been on a team that’s so well-rounded. We have five scorers. We always have someone different leading us in scoring on any given night because of the faith he has in us to let us just go out there and play.”

This man is underpaid.

He might rank second behind pops in Patrick’s heart, but for CSU, Williams could be considered the best to coach the women’s game at Moby Arena. His 90-36 record gives him the third-most wins in program history behind Tom Collen’s 129 (1997-2002) and Greg Williams’ 108 (1990-97), and his .714 winning percentage is only second to Collen's (.796). Keep in mind, however, that unlike Collen, who inherited a team that reached the NCAA tournament only two years prior, when Ryun Williams arrived, the Rams hadn’t finished with a winning record in a decade.

Now they’re in the NCAA tournament following back-to-back berths in the WNIT.

In the current contract structure, should a competing program attempt to hire Williams this offseason, that school would be required to pay a $1.075 million buyout. That’s a lot of money, especially for women’s athletics, but it certainly isn’t insurmountable.

The University of Tennessee, which received a No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament, could be looking for a new coach to replace Holly Warlick as early as next season. In February, the Lady Volunteers dropped out of the AP Top 25 for the first time in 31 years (it’s how CSU finally cracked the rankings), and their 19-13 record is the worst in program history. They certainly could afford Williams.

Other major jobs that could be open soon include Clemson, LSU and Illinois. Wisconsin fired Bobbie Kelsey earlier this month. Linda Lappe has stepped down at the University of Colorado.

The rebuilding job Williams has done at CSU trumps even what Tim Miles did with men’s basketball and is certainly more astounding than Jim McElwain’s accomplishments in football. Women’s basketball isn’t going to bring the revenue like the top male sports, but the popularity is growing with this year’s average attendance of 1,591 being CSU’s best mark since 2004-05.

Williams said he’s happy in Fort Collins and loves how much there is to do. His youngest daughter is a sophomore at Fort Collins High School, and his oldest is a freshman a little more than an hour up the road at the University of Wyoming; he’s fairly rooted here, and job jumping doesn’t tend to happen as often on the women’s side of athletics as it does for the men.

He’s previously responded to questions about his future with CSU by joking about the size of his buyout and has earned about a quarter of his salary in bonuses this season by winning the Mountain West ($25,000) and reaching the NCAA tournament ($30,000). In addition, his contract, scheduled to expire in 2019, bumps his pay by 2 percent each season; an appearance in the Sweet 16 would increase his salary to $275,000.

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Even that wouldn’t make him the Mountain West’s richest women’s basketball coach.

If CSU has any interest in long-term success for this program, it will begin work on restructuring Williams’ contract as soon as he arrives home from the NCAA tournament and make sure he’s not going anywhere. After all, coaching is a business, and everyone, even Williams, has his own professional goals. If there’s a chance he can obtain them at CSU, he’s earned the right to be paid well in the process.

“(Career goals) all depend on what you want. It depends on what your aspirations are. It depends on what you believe you can get done at the institution you’re at,” Williams said.

And what do you want?

“I want to beat South Florida.”

For insight and analysis on athletics around Northern Colorado and the Mountain West, follow sports columnist Matt L. Stephens at twitter.com/mattstephens and facebook.com/stephensreporting.