As for Davidson and Butler, both teams are anomalies, because they spend very little compared to the rest of their conference but somehow manage to make that work...I'm pretty sure a lot of that has to do with history: Hinkle Fieldhouse in the case of Butler, Steph Curry (and Bob McKillops) in the case of Davidson. In vcu's case it was "we're going to spend ALL the money to keep the train running."
Not to rehash the Coach L departure (again), but for me, the difference between post-final four vcu and Mason is that we did not have the infrastructure in place after our Final Four to really capitalize -- donor base was non-existent, fan base was almost non-existent, facilities were non-existent (other than Patriot Center), support from administration was meh...I think we were poised to finally have sustained success after 2011, but then we screwed up retaining Larranaga and the post-Larranaga hire (because we can't really be faulted for a coach leaving for an ACC school). Had TOC not gone for the big name big splash (we just grabbed another Final Four coach, screw you) hire and went for continuity instead (Courtney, Konkol, Huger, etc.) maybe things turn out a little differently.
In the A-10, the teams who make the NCAA keep 70% of that revenue. We split the 30% that's leftover, I don't think they're necessarily OK with just the scraps, but there's a lot of inertia in the program right now and they've got to find a way to turn that ship.
