* The Pac-12 Hotline newsletter is published each Monday-Wednesday-Friday during the college sports season (and twice-a-week in the summer). This edition, from April 8, has been made available in archived form …

The UCLA search: What’s another week, or month?

UCLA has been in the market for a basketball coach for 98 days.

For all the missteps the the Bruins have made and the criticism they’ve endured — for all the embarrassment the search has brought to the university — the goal remains attainable: Find the right coach.

Doesn’t matter if it takes 98 more days, they must get it right.

The Hotline has pondered three aspects of the search more than any others:

• No question is more fascinating than UCLA’s threshold for acceptable candidates on the twin fronts of NCAA compliance and personal conduct.

John Calipari has vacated two Final Fours. Jamie Dixon’s assistant at TCU was fired after being caught up in the FBI corruption case. The Bruins pursued both — Dixon has not been implicated, to be fair — yet some coaches reportedly didn’t clear the bar.

Without insight provided by those running the search, conclusions are difficult to draw. But it’s riveting to watch a major search unfold in the era of exposed corruption and not detect a hint of selective morality.

If you’re OK with vacated Final Fours, what aren’t you OK with?

• The finances of the Calipari pursuit make little sense: Why would UCLA offer him what’s effectively a pay cut to move from Lexington to Westwood?

It makes such little sense, in fact, that I wonder if something went awry somewhere along the information flow.

• UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero, senior associate Josh Rebholz and search mover/shaker Casey Wasserman were surely aware of Dixon’s $8 million buyout before discussions turned serious; they had to anticipate the possibility that TCU would refuse to negotiate a lower amount.

All of which makes me wonder if the Bruins were prepared to handle the $8 million until something went wrong at the last minute.

Yet even then, the athletic department receives $11 million annually from Under Armour. Was that revenue source unavailable?

Was there no way to conjure what would amount to $1.6 million annually (if you spread that $8 million over a five-year contract)?

• I’m also curious about the timing of the search as it involves two coaches in the Final Four: Virginia’s Tony Bennett and Texas Tech’s Chris Beard.

Maybe the Bruins had reason to believe, through back channels, that neither coach would be interested, so they moved on Dixon last week.

But if they locked on Dixon simply because they wanted to wrap things up, before attempting a hard play for Bennett or Beard, well, that’s inexcusable. You’ve waited three months and aren’t willing to wait one more week?

Again, it’s baffling — so supremely baffling that, as with the Calipari offer and the Dixon buyout, you wonder if there’s more to the story.

And yet, there’s precedent for fallback hires working out quite well, not only in the Pac-12 but in Los Angeles specifically.

Three or four years from now, we just might look back on the search and conclude the Bruins stumbled into a fabulous hire — that the whiff on Dixon was the best thing that could have happened to them.

That doesn’t make sense, but a nonsensical outcome actually makes perfect sense given the course of events over the past 98 days. — Jon Wilner

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Hot off the Hotline

• Pac-12 president Mark Shuken addressed a slew of hot topics on the media landscape during a recent conversation with the Hotline, from the efforts to monetize digital content to potential strategic partner to the timeline for measuring engagement.

• The Friday newsletter introduced our two-part series with Shuken, with the first installment focusing on the shift in emphasis to Pac-12 football content. Previous editions of the newsletter are available in archived form using the following hashtag:
https://www.mercurynews.com/tag/pac-12-hotline-newsletter/

Why we need your support: Like so many other providers of local journalism across the country, the Hotline’s parent website, mercurynews.com, recently moved to a subscription model. A few Hotline stories will remain free each month (as will this newsletter), but for access to all content, you’ll need to subscribe at a rate of just 12 cents per day for 12 months. And thanks for your loyalty.

Key Dates

All times Pacific. Spring games on Pac-12 Networks.

April 13: Utah spring game (10 a.m.)
April 13: Stanford spring game (1 p.m.)
April 13: Arizona spring game (5 p.m.)
April 17: basketball spring signing period
April 21: NBA Draft declaration deadline
April 22: federal corruption trial begins (New York City)
April 25-27: NFL Draft (Nashville)

In the News

• A freshman stole the show at USC’s spring scrimmage: Drake Jackson is drawing comparisons to Leonard Williams.

• Washington State held its first scrimmage of the spring. Mike Leach’s assessment: “I thought our receivers were remarkably soft.” (Not just soft; “remarkably” soft.)

• Colorado coach Mel Tucker retained three assistants from the previous staff. One of the holdovers, Darrin Chiaverini, is focused squarely on the receivers.

• The player tasked with replacing Ben Burr-Kirven in the middle of Washington’s defense is Brandon Wellington, who missed the first month of 2018 with a knee injury. Just a hunch: The kid can play.

• Oregon’s defense, which is learning a new system, dominated a scrimmage against the offense, which isn’t.

• Meanwhile, Utah’s revamped offensive line is making progress as the spring unfolds.

On the basketball front:

• UCLA point guard Jaylen Hands has hired an agent and is in the draft for good, joining teammate Kris Wilkes. Is that it for the Westwood exodus?

• Washington’s Matisse Thybulle was honored with the Lefty Driesell Award, given to the nation’s top defensive player. Finalists included Gonzaga’s Brandon Clarke and Zion Williamson.

Recruiting Trail

• Washington grabbed a commitment from 4-star tight end Mark Redman, whose quarterback at Corona Del Mar HS, Ethan Garbers, committed to the Huskies a month ago. (Yep, Ethan is the younger brother of Cal quarterback Chase Garbers.) Redman picked up some impressive offers before opting for UW.

Dirty Play

• In a potentially critical development for Arizona, prosecutors have requested that Sean Miller and LSU coach Will Wade not testify at the anticipated mid-April trial of runner Christian Dawkins, per an ESPN report: “The defendants are on trial for serious federal crimes, and the defendants should not be able to use this trial as a referendum on the merits of the NCAA’s rules or the state of college basketball.”

• Celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti never misses a chance to make news, and he released a series of documents Saturday that he claims implicate Nike in paying associates of Bol Bol and Deandre Ayton, among others. The alleged cash total of $170,000 is, frankly, less than I would have guessed … Sports Illustrated legal analyst Michael McCann weighs in on Avenatti.

Coaching Carousel

• Who’s next for UCLA? Reports indicate the Bruins are pursuing Tennessee coach Rick Barnes. Apparently, the sides have engaged in serious discussions.

• L.A. Times columnist Dylan Hernandez carves up UCLA’s administration for the botched attempt to hire Jamie Dixon: “The Pyramid of Success has been flipped upside down. The school’s new guiding philosophy is the Vortex of Failure.”

Medal Stand

Content on Pac-12 Olympic sports.

• Sabrina Ionescu will return to Oregon for her senior season and take a swing at her third consecutive Pac-12 Player of the Year award. Only Candice Wiggins has won it three times, and she didn’t go back-to-back-to-back. Her goal next year, of course, is a national title.

• The largest crowd to watch a Pac-12 women’s basketball game witnessed Arizona win the WNIT behind 19 points from Aari McDonald.

• No surprise I: UCLA won its regional in the NCAA gymnastics tournament and will advance to the championship round.

• No surprise II: Utah advanced, as well, albeit with a good-enough performance in the regionals.

• That Stanford student with the fake sailing credentials? Gone.

• Washington’s Olivia Gruver set a collegiate (outdoor) record for the pole vault. Her next goal is the rarified air of 16 feet.

Looking Ahead

What’s coming on the Pac-12 Hotline:

• Scheduled for Tuesday morning: My ridiculously early top-25 for next season. (I’m still in the research process and have a few Pac-12 teams in the initial group of 30-35 candidates.)

• Should they stay or should they go? Hotline columnist Brian Bennett assesses whether a handful of underclassmen should enter the NBA Draft or stay in school.

• The next newsletter is scheduled for Monday. The Hotline is shutting down for the second half of this week, our first multi-day break since last summer. We’ll ramp back up next week and churn through May and June.

Enjoy the newsletter? Please forward this email to friends (sign up here). If you don’t, or have other feedback, let me know: pac12hotline@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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