Ex-Gorman coach considered for Northern Arizona’s top job

Tuesday, March 9, 1999 | 10:39 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

Northern Arizona is cranking up its search for a new basketball coach, now that Ben Howland has gone to the University of Pittsburgh.

Perhaps among others, Athletic Director Steve Holton has his eye on Hawaii's assistant coach Jamie Dixon as well as Howland's top assistant, Mike Adras, who is a former coach at Bishop Gorman High.

Adras, who has been with the Lumberjacks for seven years, won two state titles with the Gaels.

"Obviously, I'm very interested in the job," Adras told the Arizona Republic on Monday, the day Howland was introduced formally as the new Panthers coach. "I've been around these guys. We've got a good nucleus coming back."

"Mike Adras and Jamie Dixon will get strong consideration," Holton said. "Our feeling is by the first of April, we'll want to have a new coach named. That will be a dead period in recruiting, and we'd like a person in place then."

Dixon worked with Howland for four years before taking the job in Hawaii, and he and Adras both helped Howland rebuild a Lumberjack program that had been stumbling for some time.

* Stanford assistant Trent Johnson says his goal as the new coach at Nevada-Reno is to turn UNLV into the "other" basketball team in the state. "I think this is very, very doable in terms of building a winner, building a program," Johnson, 42, said Monday of the Big West Conference school. "I don't want to be in a position where we're always looking at UNLV." Johnson replaces Pat Foster, who was 90-81 in six years with the Wolfpack.