Final Stretch: Arizona's Coaching Search

Welcome back to the carousel that is the Arizona Basketbal Coach Search. The newest Doc Randi intel is in, but first let's look at how we got here.

October: Lute Olson retires, Russ Pennell is named the Interim Head Coach

November: Michigan State's Tom Izzo, through the typical back door channels, tells friends of friends, of colleagues, who happen to be of mutual acquaintance with Jim Livengood that he might be interested in learning a little bit more about the Open Arizona Head Coaching Position.

December: Jim Livengood begins his search, speaks with C.M. Newton at the U of A vs. Kansas game up in Phoenix. As we all know Livengood has never been a plan B guy in his coaching searches. He knows who he wants and goes after only them. Reggie Theus announces his interest in the coaching vacancy. Livengood doesn't listen.

January: Rick Pitino's name starts coming up in small sections of possible coaching replacements. From the Doc Randi intel it is at this point that his interest begins heating up like an Arizona summer.

February: Rick Pitino rumors spiral up to the top. It appears that he is fast becoming the top target. Despite Arizona's 7 game win streak, Russ Pennel not being considered at all for the job, and won't be.

March: Livengood's list is two candidates long. Pitino and John Calipari. Both of whom are in the Sweet 16. Calipari's Memphis team loses it's Sweet 16 match-up and is overheard saying that Arizona gave him a blank check. Again the Doc Randi intel says that Calipari and Livengood were approaching an understanding on details.

March 27: Kentucky fires coach Billy Gillespie. Arizona fans take a heaving gulp knowing that there was competition for top coaches, then gets taken apart by Pitino.

March 30: My Cell Phone is dinging off the hook. First, Pitino is almost locked up, 10 minutes later I get a text saying Pitino has cooled significantly. John Calipari is the leading candidate for the new Kentucky opening for a ridiculous sum of money. With their contract offer on the table, it seems Kentucky killed Arizona's top 2 choices by chasing Cal with a truckload of money.

March 31: I receive the following texts -
6:30 PM - "My buddy just called and told me he thinks we'll have a coach (no specifics) in the next 24-48 hours."
10:30 PM - "Press Conference sometime between tomorrow afternoon and Friday morning. Izzo out, Pitino less than 5% chance."
10:35 PM - "FWIW (for what it's worth) I'm hearing it's either (Gonzaga's Mark) Few or (Oklahoma's Jeff) Capel...no strong evidence though, just general feelings....supposedly (Jim Livengood) was in El Paso meeting with Capel yesterday morning"
At this point I turned my phone off so as not to wake the little one.

April 1:
"Add Bruce Pearl to the list, we are looking at a top 3 of Capel, Few, and Pearl at this moment. The deal is done and the coach is in town"

With the announcement that Calipari will take over this afternoon in Kentucky I don't see Livengood holding his presser today. So Cats fans, in my estimation, you will go to bed tonight without knowing for sure who the next Arizona Head Coach is. There is always the possibility that a name could leak before or after the Calipari presser, but chances of a formal announcement today is unlikely.

Capel is coming out of left field here (which for those of you who watch My Boys learned to true definition of last night) but Bruce Pearl and Mark Few were on my original list of believed candidates from October.

Mark Few has been my top choice since day one. He won't require a huge price tag. If he can recruit to Spokane, he can recruit to Tucson, he will still have access to all of his pipelines he's been using for recruiting, he's young, he's helped maintain the Gonzaga program that came out of nowhere in the late 90s. There are a lot of questions marks with Few, but most of them surround his inability to make it past the Sweet 16 as a Head Coach. I should note that Few was the WCC Coach of the year 2001-2006, and the co-coach of the year in 2008. He has also had the conference's top player in each of the last 8 years and a few All-Americans.

We know that there might be some interest there based on his comments (following the loss to Arizona) on December 21 about shoveling snow for 6 hours upon his return to Washington from the 60+ Degree December days he'd spent in Arizona.

Fans who want to continue to hold out hope for Pitino can do as they please but it sounds like January and February was the time to get Pitino to sign a contract (which wasn't possible) because he was considering it then, but the Calipari signing might have done just enough to keep Pitino out of Livengood's reach. The only real chance Arizona would have at Pitino would revolve around a lot of money, and a guarantee that his son, Richard Pitino, would have right of first refusal when Pitino retires. Pitino has taken a great interest in Richard's future as a coach.

So Tucsonites, with Doc Randi telling us that the next coach is in town, keep an eye out for Few, Pearl, Capel, or whomever else you think might be taking over the house that Lute built. Those of you working at hotels, airports, rental car agencies, and restaurants keep those cell phones at the ready.

**UPDATE: Jeff Capel allegedly seen at the Tucson Airport. Thanks to Galvez and Boudreaux for that tidbit. We'll see.**