Coaching carousel keeps on spinning

After nearly two weeks of nonstop drama, I’m beginning to wonder if “March Madness” refers to the NCAA tournament or Virginia’s coaching search.

We can welcome Kentucky fans into the sea of madness after the Wildcats fired Billy Gillispie on Friday. That’s two coaching searches in a little more than two years for those poor souls.

Here’s a taste of what Kentucky fans can expect in the coming weeks. So far in the Virginia search, we’ve heard of a secret, late-night tour of John Paul Jones Arena by a coaching candidate.

Didn’t happen.

There have been sightings of various candidates for the UVa job all over town.

Didn’t happen.

Hey, doesn’t that guy look an awful lot like Elvis?

Smoke and mirrors

There have been contracts drawn up, official offers made, acceptances, announcements and press conferences, introductions scheduled.

Not true.

So, what’s real? What’s fantasy?

This is what I believe is going on as of 8 p.m. on Friday (and I’m missing the Oklahoma game as I write this ... damn, I hope Capel doesn’t make an official announcement at halftime).

I believe that Tubby Smith, who has been Virginia’s No. 1 wish list guy from the beginning, is contemplating the situation. I don’t think anyone from UVa has directly spoken with Smith at this point, but I think there has been lots of communication with his agent.

I don’t think money is an issue. I truly believe that UVa’s fat cats will pony up whatever it takes to turn Charlottesville into Tubby Town. I believe that no corners will be cut in this hire.

I don’t think there’s a timetable, but I suspect the longer this drags out, the less chance there is of it becoming a reality.

Frankly, I hope Tubby takes the job because I believe he would be a blast to cover. He’s a great guy with an amazing sense of humor, a great storyteller, a terrific coach and recruiter.

I believe, as I have stated before, that Tubby is the best solution to UVa’s situation.

I also believe that Tubby has to be convinced of one thing: Can he win here?

The bottom line

On Thursday, I spent two hours with a successful Division I coach, who said that when it comes to a coaching search, from a coach’s perspective, there’s only one thing that matters.

Then he took out a pen and jotted this down: “Winning.”

“Can I win?” the coach said.

I said, well, what about money? He answered that while money is obviously important, if you can’t win, then the money doesn’t matter so much.

We’ll touch on some of those things in Sunday’s column, but for now, Virginia has to convince its top candidate that he can win here and that it will do everything it can to help him win.

Until all this comes together, here’s hoping some of these rumors, sightings and the like will just go away for a while. They’re just driving everyone bananas for no reason.

Meantime, it will be interesting to see how things unfold at Kentucky.

The scenario on Friday afternoon went like this: Florida’s Billy Donovan bolts to Kentucky (a job he turned down two years ago); Meanwhile, Virginia Commonwealth’s Anthony Grant, who has a $2 million offer on the table from Alabama, opts for Florida, where he was an assistant to Donovan; and former UVa coach Jeff Jones, now at American University, travels down I-95 to Richmond.

It all seems so simple.

Except, Donovan said Friday that “I am committed to the University of Florida and look forward to continuing to build our program here.”

He did not say, “No way, no how, I would go to Kentucky.”

The Grant part of the equation seems to be over, as he said Friday he is headed to Alabama. Our sources in Gainesville said that when Donovan had temporarily accepted the NBA job two years ago, that Florida AD Jeremy Foley’s jet was sitting on the tarmac at Richmond’s airport, ready to come get Grant to become the Gators’ next coach.

Foley got a phone call from Donovan’s wife, informing the AD that “Uh, Billy’s had a change of heart, you might want to turn the jet around.”

That was that.

Sometimes it’s not so simple.