As of Friday it will have been three weeks since Utah basketball coach Ray Giacoletti offered his resignation, presumably with a push from his boss.
It seems like an eternity to diehard Ute fans, anxious to find out who will be leading their basketball program in the future, not to mention media guys who have to play the part of detectives in trying to find out who possible candidates are.
Since March 2, a couple of dozen names have been bandied about by fans and media types, some serious, some outrageous and some just outright strange.
Utah athletic director Chris Hill is keeping quiet as ever about the coaching search and because of his duties as a member of the NCAA Men's Basketball Committee, has been out of town 14 of the past 20 days.
However, earlier this week before leaving town again, he emphasized, "My first responsibility is to the University of Utah."
Presumably he is searching for a coach who has experience and success on the court and has the type of personality to light a fire under a basketball program that has been on a downward slide in recent years after reaching its greatest heights in the late 1990s.
This is a key hire for Hill and the university. After 15 years of consistent success under Rick Majerus, including a national runner-up finish in 1998, Giacoletti produced the first two consecutive losing seasons at Utah in more than two decades. But the program's decline wasn't just Giacoletti's fault.
The home attendance peaked clear back in 1995-96, two years before the Final Four run and has steadily declined, dropping below 10,000 this year for the first time in 31 years. Plus, during Majerus' last few years, the program had to put up with his frequent absences for health and family reasons, as well as the NCAA violations he incurred that cost the program scholarships and recruiting limitations.
Soon after Giacoletti was let go, everybody's favorite was ex-Stanford coach Mike Montgomery, who had 25 winning seasons in 26 years of college coaching and had recently left his job with the Golden State Warriors in the NBA. But within days he made it known he wasn't interested in a college job.
Next up was ex-Montana coach Larry Krystkowiak, who had moved on to become an assistant with the Milwaukee Bucks. Hill met with Krystkowiak a week ago, which evidently pushed the Bucks to fire coach Terry Stotts and hire Krystkowiak the following day as head coach.
Other names have popped up, including coaches with local connections such as Tommy Connor, Randy Rahe, Dick Hunsaker, Jeff Judkins and Donnie Daniels. Some local fans have even been pushing to get ex-Ute coach Rick Majerus back. But Hill apparently hasn't contacted any of these coaches and is looking outside of Utah.
Among the names of successful college coaches that have surfaced are Winthrop's Gregg Marshall, Southern Illinois' Chris Lowery, Butler's Todd Lickliter, Old Dominion's Blaine Taylor, each of whom took his team to the NCAA tournament this year and Kent State's Jim Christian.
Winthrop athletic director Tom Hickman said Wednesday that he's never heard from Hill about talking to Marshall, which makes him an unlikely candidate. Lowery and Lickliter still have teams in the tournament and could be contacted when they're through. Taylor has told sources in Montana he'd like to come back to the West, but whether now is the time is not known.
There could be several candidates that Hill is looking at, but right now, it appears Michigan State assistant coach Jim Boylen, who was interviewed by Hill Wednesday, is one of the top candidates for the job.
He talked briefly to the Deseret Morning News this week and seems to have the enthusiasm and drive as well as success in assisting top coaches such as Rudy Tomjanovich with the Houston Rockets and Tom Izzo at MSU. The one thing missing from his resume is head coaching experience, but several top coaches including Izzo and Roy Williams (at Kansas) were assistants directly before getting major jobs as head coaches.
The way things have been going, it almost seems inevitable that the new Ute coach will have ties to the University of Montana or the Milwaukee Bucks, or both.
Montgomery, was the coach at Montana for nine years. Utah State's Stew Morrill, a candidate three years ago who quickly made it known he wasn't a candidate this time around, was Montgomery's successor at Montana. Taylor, who has done well in six years at Old Dominion, coached under both Montgomery and Morrill at Montana before becoming the head coach there for eight years.
Krystkowiak, Hill's apparent first choice, who was a player at Montana and the head coach for two years before becoming an assistant with the Bucks. He flew to Milwaukee last week, and according to reports there, met for two hours with Krystkowiak about the Ute position.
Boylen, the other known candidate to have been interviewed by Hill, was an assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2004-05. He began his coaching career at Michigan State under Jud Heathcote, who coached at Montana prior to coming to Michigan State.
Boylen also fits the profile of the past two basketball hires at Utah in the fact that he's 41 years old and a native of the Midwest.
Majerus was born in Wisconsin and Giacoletti in Illinois, and both were 41 when hired. Boylen, who turns 42 on April 18, was born in Michigan.
Whoever gets the Utah job would likely earn somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million per year. Giacoletti received a seven-year deal that averaged $500,000, while Majerus was making close to $1 million when he left. Football coach Kyle Whittingham signed a deal worth $675,000 two years ago.
So the question everyone wants to know is when will Utah name a new coach? The guess from here is that it will happen by the middle of next week.
When Giacoletti was hired in 2004, it was on March 31, three days before the start of the Final Four. When Majerus was hired in 1989, the official announcement came the day after the Final Four, but it was 22 days after Lynn Archibald was fired. Football coach Urban Meyer was hired 17 days after Ron McBride was fired in 2002.
One thing that would prevent an announcement before the Final Four would be if one of the candidates Hill was courting happened to be involved with a team that was playing the following weekend.
E-mail: sor@desnews.com