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Across five months, Jim Livengood researched every conceivable elite-tier coach in college basketball. Here's what Arizona's athletic director found:

• Rick Pitino of Louisville would have been interested in coaching the Wildcats at an average salary of $4 million. He would have insisted on charter flights for everything, including recruiting and game trips. The cost was prohibitive. To make it work financially, Livengood would have had to eliminate a sport or two.

The Board of Regents would have croaked at the figures. No deal.

• Jamie Dixon isn't going to leave Pitt. Maybe someday, but not now. No deal, not even a conversation. It was the same with Michigan State's Tom Izzo, whose contract, strategically applied by a possessive administration, includes an enormous longevity bonus due April 30. Unavailable times two.

• John Calipari at Memphis let it be known he would talk at season's end. But then Kentucky fired Billy Gillispie and in 48 hours Calipari was out of Arizona's economic range.

The Big Four vanished before Livengood had a chance, face-to-face, to propose a deal.

That left USC's Tim Floyd, Xavier's Sean Miller and Oklahoma's Jeff Capel on the priority board. It was Floyd's job to turn down.

And so he did.

"At 10 this morning, Tim called and told me he had struggled with the decision; that his players had gotten to him and appealed for him to stay," Livengood said Thursday. "So I moved on. I understand that our fans are in a hurry to know who our next coach is, but I'm not going to rush the process. I'm not going to make a mistake."

The critics and detractors of Arizona's athletic director won't easily let this go. The search is in its fifth month. Someone with a recognizable face and a Final Four résumé was expected to be moving into Lute Olson's office days ago.

Nobody is out recruiting. Nobody is on a plane to Tucson for a press conference. Livengood is more unpopular than AIG.

"I understand that the perception is that I've had 'all this time' and nothing has been done," Livengood said. "And I truly understand that point of view. But in reality, I couldn't talk to any coach until their season was completed. That would've been unethical on my part and unethical on the part of the coach. I won't do that, and I wouldn't hire a coach who would do that.

"But we're close. I like where we're at; we can have this wrapped up in a few days."

Nobody wants to hear that "we're close." They don't want to hear that Livengood was operating on 30 minutes' sleep Thursday, or that he's not at liberty to answer questions about coaches he continues to pursue and those he didn't pursue.

Had the timing of Olson's retirement been different, former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery would have already coached his first season of Arizona basketball, and Livengood would be sailing into a contract renewal. Instead, Montgomery was hired by California.

But Olson wouldn't let go (who can blame him?), nobody had the power to force him out, and ultimately it all blew up in Livengood's hands.

His biggest misstep was in failing to properly evaluate 2007-08 interim coach Kevin O'Neill, and although Olson and Steve Kerr share the blame for the KO disaster, it is ultimately Livengood's responsibility.

But he can right that wrong by hiring the right guy today, or this weekend, and launching the next era of Arizona basketball.

Who's left? The best coach available is probably Xavier's Miller, a 40-year-old whiz kid who has gone 30-7 and 27-8 the last two seasons, reaching the Elite Eight and the Sweet 16, with players he recruited, not inherited.

Miller chose not to pursue the opening at Virginia. He wants bigger game. He wants an Arizona-level job. He's a Pennsylvanian with absolutely no West Coast experience, but isn't that overrated? Geography didn't stop Oregon State from hiring Craig Robinson or Stanford from signing Johnny Dawkins.

Miller has coached at Wisconsin, Pitt and North Carolina State. He wins. He would hit the ground in a dead-out sprint. About all he would need to do is hire a power recruiter with a Pac-10 background, and I'm thinking former UA assistant Josh Pastner would agree to be his associate head coach in, oh, 20 seconds.

That pairing would probably win a press conference at McKale Center on Monday or Tuesday.

Sean Miller has won 103 games in the last four seasons at Xavier, which is Lute territory. Xavier beat Missouri and Memphis this year. It knocked off West Virginia in last year's NCAA tournament a few days after West Virginia eliminated Arizona.

On Thursday, I asked Livengood if he was reeling from this ordeal.

"Oh, no," he said. "I'm refreshed. We're going to have some very good news in a day or two."

And so we wait. It's Christmas morning delayed for a few more days.

On StarNet: Tell us who you think is the next best candidate to coach the UA basketball team by answering StarNet's poll at go.azstarnet.com/starnetblog