When asked flat-out if he was pressured to resign, Giacoletti said, "I'm not going to get into that ... no ... we've met and this is where we're at. I'm not going to get into all the details. Dr. Hill has been great to deal with for three years here and I won't forget that. At the end of the day, I made the decision."

Later, in a one-on-one interview, Giacoletti said the decision wasn't a long time coming. He said the first time he met with Hill to discuss his future was just two days earlier, on Wednesday.

Again, he didn't want to blame anyone, saying, "I didn't make enough strides in our third year to continue where we're going. The bottom line in this business, it's about winning."

Said Hill: "It's hard for me to say why Ray decided to do that. Obviously things weren't working out the way they should. We were going to evaluate everything at the end of the year and see what we want to do with the program, but this was before I could do that."

Giacoletti had been frustrated all season with his team's inability to play defense and he mentioned that again Friday.

"I wish we could have played better defensively this year," he said. "But I didn't do a good enough job. It's something that if I could have fixed along the way I would have. I just didn't get it done."

Giacoletti was given a seven-year contract when he was hired three years ago, and Hill said the contract would be honored even though he wasn't officially fired. Giacoletti will receive $175,000 for the next four years, regardless if he gets another job.

"I felt that was the fair thing to do for Ray," Hill said. "That's part of college athletics and it's something we don't take lightly at all. We'll work hard at generating funds."

Giacoletti said his players were "confused" when he met with his team earlier in the day and that it was "the last thing they expected today."

He said he hopes the team will keep playing hard and said he will coach hard until the end of the season.

"I told them there's no one person any bigger than the team," he said.

As for his future, Giacoletti said after the season he'll "take my wife and disappear for a couple of weeks." Beyond that, he said he'd like to stay in the coaching profession.

"I'm a coach," he said. "That's what I do, I'm a basketball coach. I've got a chunk in me that I failed. But I still feel I can do it. I've still got 10 or 12 good years left in me."

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E-mail: sor@desnews.com