It wouldn’t be Arizona basketball without more drama, and today’s news that Xavier head coach Sean Miller is now reportedly taking the Wildcats job after having turned it down yesterday seems par for the course with this program lately. In the end, despite all the coachspeak about “good situations” and “loving” where they currently are, it came down to the dollar bills. In so doing, Miller successfully performed the Reverse Donovan with aplomb. From Andy Katz’s fine report on the matter:
(Xavier AD) Bobinski headed back to Cincinnati to be in the office Monday because Miller was waffling. His concerns were well-founded: after sleeping on the offer from Arizona, Miller decided to take the job with the Wildcats at mid-day Monday, according to a Xavier official. […] Miller and Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood met Sunday in Albuquerque, N.M. Miller asked to sleep on the offer. The Xavier official said that when Miller called back to Arizona on Monday, he was offered more money and the counteroffer was too good to pass up for the fifth-year Xavier coach. Miller hadn’t met with the team as of 2 p.m. ET Monday but was expected to do so later in the day.
Besides, despite the gutting of Arizona that is going to happen this offseason as Chase Budinger, Nic Wise and Jordan Hill all leave school, Miller has to know that he’ll be able to get far better recruits at Arizona than he was ever getting in SW Ohio. The inroads and reputation that Lute Olson developed over a quarter-century on the playgrounds of SoCal alone is enough to get Miller in the door with many blue-chippers. That… and the babes on campus in Tucson (again, no comparison with XU, see below).
