Unlv Puts Off Decision Oregon Wants To Keep Coach Who’s Due To Interview Again

UNLV officials expect to interview University of Oregon men’s basketball coach Jerry Green for a second time sometime this week for their vacant head coaching job.

Interim president Kenny Guinn said his committee had trouble meshing schedules with Green, whose team played Thursday in Salt Lake City.

The delay means pushing back Guinn’s original deadline of Monday to hire a coach, but he said the deadline is flexible.

“They’ve still got until April 12 to sign recruits,” he said Friday.

Green, who led the Ducks to a 19-9 record and their first NCAA tournament bid in 34 years, has two years left on his contract and is said to be miffed that it isn’t longer. He just finished the third year of a five-year contract worth a reported $200,000 a year.

Dan Williams, Oregon’s acting athletic director, said Green was due last year to receive a contract extension from then-athletic director Rich Brooks.

Brooks resigned in August to coach the Los Angeles Rams, leaving Williams, the school’s vice president of administration, to take over on an interim basis.

“The way I understand it, Rich intended to get some of that taken care of and just didn’t get to it,” Williams said. “I think Jerry had enough confidence that he wasn’t worried about it, so he never said anything to me about it, and I assumed things were good as they were.”

Green confirmed he never made an issue of the contract.

“I don’t have any control over that and I just do the job they hired me to do,” he told The Register-Guard in Eugene, Ore. “If people like that, then we can talk about it, and if they don’t, I’m sure I’ll hear from them about it.”

Williams said Friday he talked with Green after the Ducks’ loss Thursday. He said they outlined plans, but did not talk money.

“That’s what we will begin to do now,” Williams said. “I don’t doubt that he and I will talk specifics before he entertains other options.”

“We were very impressed with him,” Guinn said of a meeting he and other UNLV officials had with Green last Tuesday.

Does that give Green an inside track?

“I don’t know that we have a leading candidate,” Guinn hedged Monday. “A lot depends on meetings we have with others this week, and a lot depends on how he (Green) feels about UNLV. He’s got to say ‘yes’ too.”