Athletics Director Ron Wellman flew to Colorado yesterday to talk with Coach Jeff Bzdelik of Colorado about becoming Wake Forest's men's basketball coach amid a flurry of reports that the deal had already been struck, a source close to the search said.
Wellman was originally scheduled to travel to Boulder early in the day but delayed his flight to Denver after Bzdelik met with his team.
The source said that Bzdelik called Wellman to say he was having second thoughts about leaving Colorado.
Bzdelik later called Wellman to say he was ready to talk with him about the job. The Associated Press reported last night from Boulder that Bzdelik told his team he had neither been offered nor accepted the job.
Colorado officials released a statement late last night, confirmed by Steve Shutt, Wake Forest's assistant athletics director for media relations, that Bzdelik would meet with Wake Forest officials in Winston-Salem today to discuss the vacancy.
Wake Forest is looking for a successor to Dino Gaudio, who was 61-31 in three seasons and took teams to the past two NCAA Tournaments. Bzdelik is 36-58 in three seasons at Colorado.
The Boulder Daily Camera reported Saturday that the agreement was a done deal, which Wellman denied that night.
"It's not a done deal, I guarantee you that," Wellman said .
"That's conjecture on their part. There is no agreement with anyone, and we're still in the search process."
Wellman knows Bzdelik, 57, from the days when both were at Northwestern, from 1981 through 1986. Wellman was the head baseball coach, and Bzdelik was an assistant basketball coach.
Bzdelik was 73-119 as the head coach of the Denver Nuggets from the 2002-03 season through the 2004-05 season. After two impressive seasons as the head coach at Air Force, where he was 24-7 in 2005-06 and 26-9 in 2006-07, he left to become the head coach at Colorado.
The Buffaloes were 12-20 overall and 2-13 in the Big 12 in 2007-08, 9-22 and 1-15 in conference play in 2008-09 and 15-16 and 6-10 this past season.
dcollins@wsjournal.com
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