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UA's coaching answer could be good, or good and ugly

Selection Day is fast approaching at McKale Center, but this year it has nothing to do with seeds, brackets or office pools.

Kevin O'Neill or Lute Olson?

"I'm surprised there hasn't been (more) speculation,'' the candid O'Neill said after Arizona lost to UCLA 68-66 Sunday.

After the madness of Sunday's game, in which Olson's estranged wife, Christine, sat courtside, animated, cheering for the Wildcats — only to be trumped at game's end when Lute quietly participated in Senior Day activities — wins and losses have become secondary.

Lute or KO?

The lack of public commitment from McKale Center's high command has become awkward.

One simple statement — "Lute will be our head coach in 2008-09'' — and it all goes away.

Instead, it is left for CBS and the Los Angeles Times and many news outlets with an interest in college hoops to take a guess. The topic is irresistible.

"I think there will be a lot of speculation,'' O'Neill said after Sunday's game. "Everybody wonders what's going on. I don't think anyone knows exactly what the future (holds) for any of us.''

He suggested that speculation about Olson's return won't end until "the situation goes away and goes forward.''

That was considerably more information than Olson offered. Protected by two security guards, he left the arena without comment.

Let it be known that O'Neill identified himself as a "caretaker'' of Olson's program, but, c'mon, that is naïve and it no longer applies.

This is O'Neill's team in body and soul. He has taken a club of leftovers — walk-ons, those dogged by injuries, those who didn't meet expectations, those who probably would've been better suited to play at Pepperdine or Colorado State than Arizona — to the brink of an NCAA tournament berth.

And he has done so, essentially, with the smallest coaching staff in Division I basketball, both in number and in spirit.

Maybe I'm alone here, but if the Wildcats sweep in Oregon this week, my vote for Pac-10 Coach of the Year would go to O'Neill.

The tidy arrangement between Olson, O'Neill and Livengood escalated, and for all intents vaporized, the day Olson bolted the program with no public explanation. After that, O'Neill no longer was merely a coach brought in to adjust a few attitudes and strengthen Arizona's reputation and defense.

He became The Coach. He has been performing a $1 million job for $375,000. It would now be preposterous to expect him to step back, blend into the scenery and wait for Olson to retire.

He would likely quit in a heartbeat, and wouldn't you?

This is a career decision for Livengood, who must make the most sensitive call in the entire history of UA athletics. Olson or O'Neill? Nobody covered this potentially flammable issue in Athletic Directorship 101.

If he so chooses, Olson could make it easy on everyone, especially Livengood, by announcing his retirement. He would be given a gala going-away celebration, a (well-earned) check for about $2.5 million, and, in doing so, anoint O'Neill as his successor and take the high road to legend-hood.

It would be a warm-and-fuzzy handoff.

There would be no baggage, no me vs. him mess to dirty the scrolls, and Olson would forever be an Arizona Saint, leaving his celebrated streak of 23 consecutive NCAA tournaments and 20 straight 20-win seasons for posterity.

As it now stands, O'Neill has unwittingly been matched against the legend in a game of public chess that KO can't possibly win without Olson's sanction. Inconceivably, KO is in position to have the awkward slippage of Arizona's basketball program put on his shoulders.

The fall guy.

The other side is that Olson, who will turn 74 in September, has more than earned the right to stay. He has become so powerful that he is accountable to almost no one at the UA. As recently as 2005, Olson was untouchable and for a good reason. He is the most powerful and prominent college coach in the history of this state, any sport.

The revenues he has produced at Arizona, as much as $17 million annually, are almost unprecedented in the industry. If he wants to coach another season, even if all it amounts to is a glorified Farewell Tour, who can blame him?

After Sunday's game, senior Kirk Walters declared that Olson "needed to be out there'' for Senior Day, as did fellow senior Jawann McClellan, who, strangely, is probably as close to Olson as any Wildcat player since the Steve Kerr days.

"We talk every so often. It's just chit-chat,'' McClellan said. "When you've been doing something for over 30 years, you know he wants to come back and give his opinion.''

The seniors and their families met with Olson later Sunday night, at a private residence, which has become standard during the last 20 years.

As they left McKale Center to celebrate old times, O'Neill was left, alone, to field questions about his future and that of UA basketball. He had no answers.

The silence has become deafening.