If Sean Miller's coaching career continues its upward trajectory with the Arizona Wildcats, this could be an annual exercise.
Maybe Jim Calhoun retires at UConn. Maybe Jamie Dixon finally gets lured away from Pitt. Or John Calipari leaves Kentucky for some reason.
Where would those schools turn to first for a replacement? To Miller, possibly.
But the Arizona coach indicated Monday that he might not pick up the phone. Miller said he is "here for the long haul unconditionally" during a news conference held with UA athletic director Greg Byrne to discuss his retraction from the Maryland coaching search.
"Just so you know, I'm not that guy who's going to do this next spring or the spring after or whatever," Miller said. "You may be surprised, especially because I'm somebody who left the East to go to the West, and somebody will reach out once in a while to check and see where you stand. A lot of those opportunities never come out (to the public). This one did because I at least considered it."
Miller, who makes more than $2 million annually at Arizona, did not specifically identify the reasons he considered the Maryland job other than to say he had to take a look at it. The Terrapins are not only located close to his personal roots in Pennsylvania but also in the heart of a fertile recruiting ground.
At Maryland, Miller would have the ability to watch a workout by a player such as Baltimore's Josh Selby or Washington's Quinn Cook and be home in time for dinner, instead of taking two days to do so, as he did while becoming a finalist for both top-rated players during his first two years with Arizona. He could assemble a top-10 recruiting class virtually without stepping on an airplane, instead of constantly flying to both coasts, as he and his staffers do now.
"That is a reason you'd want to consider" Maryland, Miller said. "But that's all that happened, and I've moved on."
UA plans to compensate for the more difficult recruiting by allowing Miller and his staff a generous budget for charter-airplane travel. The Wildcats also intend to begin using charters to games more often next season. Finally, UA plans to start giving Miller's assistant coaches postseason bonuses, which were not in their contracts previously.
Byrne declined to offer specifics of the travel concessions and reworked contracts that will go before the Arizona Board of Regents next month in Flagstaff. But he said they are likely to be approved, adding Miller "will not have any trouble getting where he needs to go in recruiting."
"I've had good conversations with the board members," Byrne said. "Everything I've sensed from them is that they know this is an important part of our university, and we want to succeed at a very high level."
UA announced that Miller agreed to a contract extension Saturday night, but he and Byrne insisted the revisions had been in the works long before the weekend and were largely agreed upon in April.
Miller's contract was not presented to the regents last month, possibly because they were voting on controversial tuition increases. Announcing a new contract at a fiscally challenging time would have been politically difficult, even though UA's athletic department is largely self-sustaining.
"The (idea) of a deal being done in the last 48 hours just because this (Maryland opening) has happened is 100 percent false," Miller said. Since last season ended, "we've had meetings. It hasn't been one, it has been several. (It's been about) understanding the huge step that is the Board of Regents and just really, things that take time to happen.
"Those are all things I completely understood."
Personal reasons may have been a bigger consideration, but Miller said his family was not pushing him to Maryland. Miller said his wife, Amy, was behind his decision to stay at Arizona and he noted that their three sons "would be crushed" if they had to leave Tucson.
"I'm 42 and I've lived in the East for 40 years," Miller said. "Is that something that means something? Yes. But my wife loves Tucson, Arizona. Just so you know, one of the big reasons we are here today is because of her, not just when we left Cincinnati (in April 2009), but in the fact that we're here today."
Speculation about Miller's situation last weekend became so heated that a mention on Amy Miller's Twitter page that she was struggling with allergies in Tucson was translated into another possible reason for Sean Miller's interest in leaving town.
"She's not allowed to tweet anymore," Miller said jokingly, noting that the allergies were no factor. "She has allergies like probably everyone else in this room does. β¦ It's not like she's walking around with a mask on."
So in the end, the way Miller described it, his decision came down to both personal and professional considerations.
And about where home was, and where it is now.
"I love being here," Miller said. "If you ask what this weekend was about, if I said to you, 'Do you ever have an opportunity in your career that at least causes you to pause and consider?' I think all of us would say 'Yes.' That's what this weekend was for me."
