So the Washington State coach doesn't want the Indiana job. Not a

ringing endorsement of the argument that Indiana is still an elite basketball

program. There is probably a good chance this 10-person committee's work

is going to be a bit harder than they imagined when they took on the

responsibility.

This job search has been made tough for many reasons:

Indiana has been cited for major violations in its basketball program

and the penalties associated with that have yet to be levied out.

There is a major rebuilding job for the next coach. D.J. White and

three others players have graduated. Eric Gordon is expected to

announce his departure for the NBA, possibly in the next few days. There is

rampant speculation of player transfers (see below) and already the incoming

recruiting class has been halved with the loss of Devin Ebanks and Terrell

Holloway.

The university likely does not have the financial wherewithal to

pay a big name coach. As our

story last week

on contracts shows, many coaches are now making well in excess of $2

million per season.

Because of the Kelvin Sampson saga and a desire to gain back its

reputation for doing things the right way, Indiana will probably have to

stay away from any candidate with even a "hint of taint" in his history.

Whether that be agents around the program, poor graduation rates, history of

off court incidents or what have you.

Coaches aren't real fond of search or advisory committees and the

university doesn't have the best reputation right now among the coaching

fraternity given the handling of some of the things with Kelvin Sampson's

departure and such things as the announcing of the committee just a few days

before Indiana's NCAA tourney game.

Perhaps because of that list of difficulties, some unexpected names have come

up as candidates the last week. Former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery and

current UNLV coach Lon Kruger are two such names. Both are veterans who have

taken teams to the Final Four. The problem with time tested veterans, especially the

61-year old Montgomery, is once they get through a 3-4 year old rebuilding

process their age could be used against them on the recruiting trail. That's one

reason that to continue to first exhaust the list of rising stars in the

coaching profession that seem to be a good fit for the Indiana job. We

identified four coaches in this

March 19th column

and with Bennett's decision that leaves Sean Miller, Jamie Dixon and Brad

Brownell as the logical guys to look at next if you go with this line of

thinking.

Xavier's Miller is the most often mentioned candidate with the Indiana

opening from that trio but he comes with a buyout that may approach $2 million.

Sources close to the Musketeer program tell us that Miller is expected to get a

contract extension in the next few weeks that will raise his salary up to around

$1.2 million per season. They also say he is definitely leaning against

the Indiana possibility though this could all change in face to face meetings.

Jamie Dixon reportedly turned down the Cal job this past week and may only

look to move out of Pitt if a Pac-10 job like Arizona or USC opens up here in

the near future. He is from the Los Angeles area originally and coached

under Ben Howland at Northern Arizona.

If Miller and Dixon aren't interested you could see Indiana give a long look at Brad Brownell.

While Wright State is obviously at a different level than a Pitt or Xavier, the

Raiders coach has had tremendous success with his teams, averaging 23 wins a year over the past three seasons. He also has deep Hoosier roots

and more head coaching experience than all of the four coaches we identified

in our original column. But is it even a no-brainer that the Evansville native

would take the Hoosier job? He turned down a more lucrative offer to coach

Ball State two years ago when he saw the lack of support there in

Muncie. That move turned out to be a smart one.

If there is a sleeper candidate that might be flying under the radar the vote

goes to Marquette coach Tom Crean. His salary situation ($1.65 million) is

not going to motivate him to leave Milwaukee but he doesn't seem to be able to

get over the top against the Big East's best and may want to get back to his Big

Ten roots where he might eventually have a better chance to return to the Final

Four.

While nobody talks about Dan Dakich, from all accounts the IU interim coach

continues to work hard back in Assembly Hall. He has a lot of past player

support and with his coaching experience it certainly is not inconceivable that

the university decides to stand pat, especially if the names mentioned here do

turn down the opportunity.

Despite rumors about Steve Alford because of a private plane flight to

Albuquerque from Bloomington this weekend, that possibility was shot down by the

Albuquerque Journal this morning. "Steve was in El Paso watching

his son play (in an AAU basketball tournament)," said UNM athletic director Paul

Krebs. "As far as I'm concerned, (there is) absolutely no truth to it. Rumor."

Any time you have a coaching change and controversy, the likelihood of player

transfers is high. In the move from Mike Davis to Kelvin Sampson, the

Hoosier program saw four transfers in just over a year (Robert Vaden, Joey Shaw,

Xavier Keeling, Ben Allen). After the loss to Arkansas in the tournament,

freshmen Jordan Crawford and Brandon McGee both said they were not sure if they

would return to the team next year. Now the status of a couple older

players is in question. Last night WTHR, an Indianapolis NBC station,

reported that Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis are expected to transfer.

In yet more evidence of this year's soap opera, WTHR has had A.J. Ratliff as

a guest analyst this month on their Sports Jam show. Bizarre that a

healthy player with eligibility remaining for a team he left a few weeks ago is

your guest expert for that team and the tourney. We're not making this

stuff up. One has to wonder is he is getting paid for this? Last

night on the show Ratliff said Bassett and Ellis would be meeting with the IU

coaching staff today about the transfer possibility but "do want to stay at

Indiana." So stay tuned.

One coach that might be able to keep a couple players in the fold is Sean

Miller. He heavily recruited both Crawford and Bassett while at Xavier.

The Final Four this year includes a group of teams with the same kind of past

tradition and success that Indiana has been so fortunate to attain in its

history. Those programs worked through some bumps in the road with

coaching changes and down years and now are sailing so smooth that recruiting

great talent is fairly easy. Despite all that has happened, Indiana still

has the name recognition and one of the top 2-3 fan bases in the country.

It now may take a few years but if IU makes the right call this week on its next

coach, there's no reason it can't return to the mountain top where UCLA, Kansas

and North Carolina are standing this week.