CECIL HURT: Wheels turned quickly after Grant targeted in UA search

There came a time, after a furious couple of weeks, when the University of Alabama's most recent football coaching search reached a lull, an eye in the midst of a hurricane. When that happened, the only requirement for Director of Athletics Mal Moore was patience. He had to sit like a butterfly on a stone, waiting on Nick Saban to accept the position.

If not, the hurricane was going to kick up again. But that never happened.

In the Crimson Tide's current basketball search, that crossroads may have been reached almost as soon as the Mal Moore Search Bus pulled out of the driveway. Alabama has clearly identified its top candidate — Anthony Grant of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Grant is as popular among Southeastern Conference athletic directors at hiring time as Marcia Brady before the senior prom. He's had plenty of suitors ever since he appeared to be headed for Florida during Billy Donovan's weekend fling with the Orlando Magic a couple of years back. Alabama officials apparently have the same warm, fuzzy feeling for Grant that ADs (and columnists from Atlanta to Washington) share. UA has proceeded formally, has already spoken to Grant in Richmond and, according to numerous sources, could be speaking to him again today in Tuscaloosa.

Will it be a whirlwind courtship? Or will it be the same waiting game that Moore went through in December 2006? (Perhaps Moore should rent the same hotel suite in Miami to conduct his vigil, if only as a lucky charm.) Chances are, it will move quickly. Even without relying on ubiquitous unnamed sources, logic is a simple road map for what has happened in the last few days.

After a period of discussion, Alabama's name-gatherers — primarily Dave Hart — reviewed the list of viable candidates ('viable' is the key word here) and came to the same conclusion that others have come to concerning Grant's qualifications. Grant has long been a favorite of those in the Rick Pitino/Billy Donovan stable, a group that, in turn, has close connections to former Alabama coach C. M. Newton. Once Grant was identified, the wheels went into motion quickly. The singling-out process was followed, in short order, by permission from VCU to talk. A meeting swiftly ensued, Moore was impressed and the rest, as they say, was nature following its course.

So the waiting game begins. Could Grant simply be cautious, as he was last season when he let vacancies at LSU and South Carolina go by? Could he be waiting on Virginia — another good opening, although one that might require more of a long-term reconstruction job than Alabama? (If the Philip Pearson-coached Crimson Tide showed anything from about February 10 to the conclusion of the season, it's that Alabama isn't too far, talent-wise, from contending in a watery SEC West Division.) Could he be waiting for the Billy Gillispie soap opera to end at Kentucky, where a firing could overturn the entire applecart as far as college coaching vacancies are concerned? Who knows where those apples would roll? Florida? Louisville? And how long is Alabama willing to wait on those answers while other candidates are wooed by other schools (or, in many cases, by their current employers).

Grant isn't a B-list candidate by any means. Neither is anyone still alive in the Sweet 16 this weekend. But some journeyman names have been bandied about, and — having been promised a great deal at the time of Mark Gottfried's dismissal — Alabama fans aren't likely to get enthusiastic about any lesser lights.

But there seems to be only one thing Alabama can do now and that's the same thing that it did around Christmas of 2006. And that is wait.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of the Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com.