20 days after Utah basketball coach Ray Giacoletti resigned, his successor is still anyone's guess

Other names have popped up, including coaches with local connections such as Tommy Connor, Randy Rahe, Dick Hunsaker, Jeff Judkins and Donnie Daniels. Some local fans have even been pushing to get ex-Ute coach Rick Majerus back. But Hill apparently hasn't contacted any of these coaches and is looking outside of Utah.

Among the names of successful college coaches that have surfaced are Winthrop's Gregg Marshall, Southern Illinois' Chris Lowery, Butler's Todd Lickliter, Old Dominion's Blaine Taylor, each of whom took his team to the NCAA tournament this year and Kent State's Jim Christian.

Winthrop athletic director Tom Hickman said Wednesday that he's never heard from Hill about talking to Marshall, which makes him an unlikely candidate. Lowery and Lickliter still have teams in the tournament and could be contacted when they're through. Taylor has told sources in Montana he'd like to come back to the West, but whether now is the time is not known.

There could be several candidates that Hill is looking at, but right now, it appears Michigan State assistant coach Jim Boylen, who was interviewed by Hill Wednesday, is one of the top candidates for the job.

He talked briefly to the Deseret Morning News this week and seems to have the enthusiasm and drive as well as success in assisting top coaches such as Rudy Tomjanovich with the Houston Rockets and Tom Izzo at MSU. The one thing missing from his resume is head coaching experience, but several top coaches including Izzo and Roy Williams (at Kansas) were assistants directly before getting major jobs as head coaches.

The way things have been going, it almost seems inevitable that the new Ute coach will have ties to the University of Montana or the Milwaukee Bucks, or both.

Montgomery, was the coach at Montana for nine years. Utah State's Stew Morrill, a candidate three years ago who quickly made it known he wasn't a candidate this time around, was Montgomery's successor at Montana. Taylor, who has done well in six years at Old Dominion, coached under both Montgomery and Morrill at Montana before becoming the head coach there for eight years.

Krystkowiak, Hill's apparent first choice, who was a player at Montana and the head coach for two years before becoming an assistant with the Bucks. He flew to Milwaukee last week, and according to reports there, met for two hours with Krystkowiak about the Ute position.

Boylen, the other known candidate to have been interviewed by Hill, was an assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks in 2004-05. He began his coaching career at Michigan State under Jud Heathcote, who coached at Montana prior to coming to Michigan State.

Boylen also fits the profile of the past two basketball hires at Utah in the fact that he's 41 years old and a native of the Midwest.

Majerus was born in Wisconsin and Giacoletti in Illinois, and both were 41 when hired. Boylen, who turns 42 on April 18, was born in Michigan.