South Alabama Offers Coaching Job To Fisher

Former University of Michigan basketball coach Steve Fisher is the front-runner to fill the coaching vacancy at the University of South Alabama, the school said Monday.

“The job is Fisher’s to either accept or turn down,” said sports information director Mike Nicholson.

Fisher was fired Oct. 11 after a seven-month investigation by a Kansas law firm concluded that team booster Ed Martin allegedly provided players with improper benefits and money. Fisher led Michigan to a 184-82 record in eight seasons.

South Alabama recently extended a self-imposed deadline for hiring a coach to Friday. The school also interviewed former Memphis coach Larry Finch and current assistant coach Tommy Wade.

Picked in a preseason poll to finish eighth in its conference, South Alabama went 23-7 and won the Sun Belt tournament last year before losing to eventual champion Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Wade is running team practices until the Jaguars hire a full-time coach. Bill Musselman resigned last month to take a job with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Charles Williams and Ruben Patterson, two mainstays on Cincinnati’s nationally prominent basketball team, will remain ineligible to play while the NCAA investigates the embattled program.

The university declared Williams, Patterson and backup John Carson ineligible as it released a 66-page report that found numerous violations of NCAA rules involving the players, assistant coach John Loyer and a team manager.