UNLV targets Majerus in round 2

Steve Addy

Wednesday, March 7, 2001 | 10:51 a.m.

If the Rebels plan to woo Utah coach Rick Majerus as their next basketball coach, he won't be hard to find this week.

Majerus, one of UNLV's leading targets in its coaching search, will attend the Mountain West tournament to watch his top-seeded Utes under interim coach Dick Hunsaker.

Majerus has missed all but Utah's first game of the season because he's tending to health problems and his ailing mother in Milwaukee.

Though university and booster sources say mutual interest exists between UNLV and Majerus, athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro on Tuesday denied a Sportsline.com report that he'll meet with Majerus on Sunday after the tournament.

"Absolutely not true," Cavagnaro said. "It's a nice try, but I don't have anything scheduled with anybody.

"Trust me, we're not going to be hiring a coach tomorrow or the day after. Most other teams are still playing right now. We're moving forward with the process, but nothing is imminent."

Cavagnaro is essentially serving as a one-man search committee for the university.

"But I'm in constant consultation with (president Dr. Carol Harter)," he said.

Soon after Bill Bayno was removed as coach Dec. 11, UNLV boosters began investigating whether Majerus would have interest in the Rebels' job. Even before Rick Pitino came on the market after quitting the Celtics, Majerus was the favorite of many boosters.

Majerus spent much of November and December in Las Vegas rehabilitating from knee surgery. He had planned to return to his team in January, but chest pains led him to undergo two heart procedures and decide to stay away all season.

In 17 years as a head coach, Majerus has a 361-125 record, and guided Utah to the national championship game in 1998, where it lost to Arizona. He is 262-73 in 12 years at Utah.

The 52-year-old Majerus has been a frequent target in coaching searches for the last decade and interviewed for the UNLV job in 1992. But he remained at Utah and led it to six straight conference titles.

This year was Utah's seventh in a row, as the Utes tied with BYU and Wyoming in the MWC, but it was Hunsaker's doing.

Cavagnaro is also said to be going after Purdue's Gene Keady, winner of six Big Ten titles and six national coach of the year awards. He has a 453-204 record in 21 years at Purdue, though the Boilermakers are only 14-13 this season. They face Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament on Thursday in Chicago.