Wake Forest is going to name assistant coach Dino Gaudio the successor to the late Skip Prosser at a news conference Wednesday, multiple sources have told ESPN.com late Tuesday night.

Sources have told ESPN.com that Gaudio will not have the interim tag and that both parties are close to agreeing on a three-year contract.

He was a big part of Wake Forest's recent renaissance with current NBA players Josh Howard and Chris Paul. Gaudio was a big part of the staff that recruited a potential for a top-five recruiting class in 2008 if all the commitments hold.

Prosser, the congenial coach who led the Demon Deacons for six seasons, died July 26 of an apparent heart attack at the age of 56, shocking the college basketball world and leaving the university in disbelieving grief.

Two other Prosser staff members were believed to be among the top candidates to replace him: associate head coach Jeff Battle and assistant Pat Kelsey.

Gaudio -- a longtime assistant to Prosser on both the high school and college levels -- has seven years of college head coaching experience. He was 36-72 in four seasons as Army's head coach and 32-52 at Loyola of Maryland from 1998-2000.

The announcement could cap a tumultuous 13 days in Winston-Salem.

Shortly after Prosser returned from his noon jog July 26, he was found unresponsive and slumped on his office couch by one of his assistants. Medical personnel performed CPR and used a defibrillator, but Prosser was pronounced dead after being taken to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

During the funeral, Prosser was remembered by Gaudio for having "unwavering" integrity, and the veteran assistant said during his eulogy that "those of us that were blessed to be under his charge will carry that with us for the rest of our lives."

Under Prosser the Demon Deacons won the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title in 2003 and reached the NCAA tournament in his first four seasons. Wake Forest reached No. 1 in the poll for the first time during the 2004-05 season.

Prosser was head coach at Xavier for seven seasons and at Loyola of Maryland for one.

He had a career record of 291-146 as a head coach, including 126-68 with Wake Forest. He is the only coach to take three schools to the NCAA tournament in his first season at each.

Labels: coaching changes

Ball State's coaching uncertainty has come to an end.

The school has hired Lehigh's Billy Taylor as the new head coach, filling the vacancy created by the departure of Ronny Thompson.

"It was clear that Billy Taylor wanted to be the head coach at Ball State University," athletic director Tom Collins said in a statement. "Billy has head coaching experience, Midwest roots ... and was highly successful in a great league."

Earlier in the day, Ron Hunter withdrew from consideration for the opening, telling ESPN.com he had decided to remain as the head coach at IUPUI.

Taylor interviewed for the Ball State job a year ago when the school hired Thompson. He was to be introduced as the new coach during a news conference on Wednesday at the Muncie campus.

Thompson resigned three weeks ago after an internal investigation discovered that he and his staff violated NCAA rules two years in a row by attending voluntary offseason workouts. The coaches also lied about their involvement in that infraction in May, the school has said.

Thompson's Washington-based attorney, Matthew Keiser, said on Monday that Thompson denied breaking any NCAA rules. Keiser also said Thompson, who is black, did not quit because of the investigation and that his resignation letter told Ball State officials of the "racially hostile work environment" he had faced. The school said it is investigating his claims.

On Monday, the NCAA asked Ball State to investigate more possible violations, including allegations that the women's volleyball coach was fired for reporting a possible men's basketball violation, and that extra benefits were provided to current players and a player from another university whom Thompson was recruiting as a transfer to Ball State. The new allegations were first reported by the Muncie Star Press.

The new allegations, which were revealed Monday afternoon, were a major factor in Hunter's return to IUPUI, according to a source close to the situation. Both Hunter and Taylor are black, and Hunter said on Tuesday that he was also aware of Thompson's claims about the racial climate.

"I did look into it a little bit, but that wasn't the reason I made the decision," Hunter told The Associated Press. "I was a little concerned about the NCAA problems."

Taylor has an 81-69 record in five seasons at Lehigh. His greatest success came in 2003-04 when he led the Mountain Hawks to their first-ever Patriot League regular-season and tournament titles and an NCAA tournament berth. He is a two-time Patriot League coach of the year. Lehigh went 12-19 last season.

Taylor graduated from West Aurora High School, which is southwest of Chicago. The Ball State campus is in Muncie, Ind., also relatively close to Chicago. Recruited by Digger Phelps at Notre Dame, Taylor played for the Fighting Irish and graduated in 1995.

Hunter had been the front-runner for the Ball State opening.

He will receive a new contract to stay at IUPUI, where he has coached for 14 seasons, he said Tuesday. His old contract was signed through the 2012-13 season. His new contract, which will boost his annual base salary of $120,000, will run through the 2014-15 season. His new salary is commensurate with the money that would have been available at Ball State.

With Hunter returning to IUPUI, Ball State athletic director Tom Collins interviewed Taylor in Indianapolis on Monday night, according to a source close to Ball State.

Lehigh faced some rules troubles under Taylor and decided to officially forfeit 13 games from the 2004-05 season because of an ineligible player. The school said it misinterpreted an NCAA rule concerning a player for whom it did not accept some transfer credits.

According to the Ball State source, three other candidates were considered for the job: South Florida assistant Dan Hipsher, former St. Louis head coach Brad Soderberg and Texas Tech assistant Stew Robinson, a native of Indiana and a three-year starter for former Indiana coach Bob Knight.

Labels: coaching changes

University of South Carolina officials say they're willing to work with football coach Steve Spurrier -- but they won't completely rewrite the school's admissions policies to do so.

School officials defended the university's admissions standards a day after Spurrier harshly criticized the school for denying admission to two would-be football players who met minimum NCAA standards.

"Every student that's NCAA-qualified is not necessarily going to succeed and shouldn't be accepted," Bill Bearden, South Carolina's NCAA faculty athletics representative, told The State newspaper of Columbia.

Bearden and three other tenured professors make up the university's special admissions committee, which, according to provost Mark Becker, reviewed more than half of the Gamecocks' football signees. The committee denied admission to three of the players, one of whom was eventually admitted on appeal, The State reported.

Spurrier was angered that receiver Michael Bowman of Wadesboro, N.C., and Arkee Smith of Jacksonville, Fla., were cleared by the NCAA to enroll, yet were turned down by the university.

"Hopefully, I truly believe this is the last year this is going to happen, because I can't operate like that," Spurrier said on Sunday. "I can't operate misleading young men."

Spurrier signed a contract extension, which included a raise of nearly a half-million dollars, that ties him to South Carolina through 2012. However, he said if things didn't change on admissions "then I have to go somewhere else, because I can't tell the young man that he's coming to school here," then not have him admitted.

Bearden told The State that the special admissions committee thoroughly reviews each applicant, including grades, records, test scores and classes taken, and admits students who have a realistic chance of succeeding.

Athletic director Eric Hyman said university president Andrew Sorensen is agreeable to "tweaking" the school's athletic admissions process, and Hyman anticipates bringing proposed changes to the university's board of trustees, the newspaper reported.

But Hyman also told the newspaper that the school must remain mindful of the NCAA's academic progress rate -- a measure of how well schools retain athletes and keep them academically eligible to play sports. Schools that fall below minimum standards are subject to scholarship reductions.

"It's a heightened sense of concern, so therefore you have to have people who can ultimately make it," Hyman said, according to the newspaper.

Labels: coaching changes

Ron Hunter withdrew from consideration for the Ball State job Tuesday morning, telling ESPN.com he had decided to stay as the head coach at IUPUI.

Hunter was the front-runner for the Ball State opening. The position has been vacant for more than three weeks since Ronny Thompson resigned after an internal investigation discovered that he and his staff violated NCAA rules two years in a row by attending voluntary offseason workouts. The coaches also lied about their involvement in that infraction in May, the school has said.

On Monday, the NCAA asked Ball State to investigate more possible violations, including allegations that the women's volleyball coach was fired for reporting a possible men's basketball violation, and that extra benefits were provided to current players and a player from another university whom Thompson was recruiting as a transfer to Ball State. The new allegations were first reported by the Muncie Star Press.

The new allegations, which were revealed Monday afternoon, were a major factor in Hunter's return to IUPUI, according to a source close to the situation.

Hunter will receive a new contract to stay at IUPUI, where he has coached for 14 seasons, he said Tuesday. His old contract was signed through the 2012-13 season. His new contract, which will boost his annual base salary of $120,000, will run through the 2014-15 season. His new salary is commensurate with the money that would have been available at Ball State.

With Hunter returning to IUPUI, Ball State athletic director Tom Collins interviewed Lehigh coach Billy Taylor in Indianapolis on Monday night, according to a source close to Ball State. Taylor played at Notre Dame and has coached Lehigh to a Patriot League title and an NCAA Tournament berth in six seasons there.

Taylor had interviewed at Ball State a year ago when Thompson got the job.

According to the source, the other three candidates are South Florida assistant Dan Hipsher, former St. Louis head coach Brad Soderberg and Texas Tech assistant Stew Robinson, who is a native of Indiana and was a three-year starter for former Indiana coach Bob Knight.

There is currently no timetable to hire a coach at Ball State, the source said.

Labels: coaching changes