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Arizona Board of Regents to discuss University of Arizona basketball coach Sean Miller

Posted at 6:34 AM, Mar 01, 2018
and last updated 2018-03-01 18:46:20-05

On Thursday, the Arizona Board of Regents is scheduled to meet in Phoenix to discuss the University of Arizona and their head basketball coach.

 

Sean Miller has been accused of offering to pay for a top recruit to commit to the university according to information coming from an ESPN report.

 

However, the validity of the report has been called into question over the last week. ESPN changed the timeline and also once reported Miller was fired, then retracted that

 

The ABOR meeting will be at 2:00 p.m. Thursday and will be in executive session, which means it will be closed to the public. 

 

The agenda writes that the meeting will be "for legal advice and discussion regarding University of Arizona men’s basketball and the multiple-year employment contract for the head men’s basketball coach."

 

ABOR has already said they would be re-evaluating their approval of multi-year contracts after the firing of both Todd Graham and Rich Rodriguez in less than six months.

 

Todd Graham was Arizona State University's head football coach until the end of November. However, he still had more than $10 million left on his contract.

 

Rich Rodriguez was the University of Arizona's head football coach until last month. He was fired amid sexual harassment allegations. He still had roughly $6 million left on his contract, as well. 

 

ABC15 spoke with attorney Stockton Banfield with Udall Shumway in Mesa. He said that the rumors have already done plenty of damage to Miller and the university as a whole. 

 

"The attorneys are going to have a lot of work to dissuade the Board of Regents... as far as - pay attention to the facts," Banfield explained.

 

He said they cannot rely on the unconfirmed ESPN report, as the FBI has non-publicly released that information. 

 

"Without the facts of the wiretap, it's hard to make a decision," Banfield explained. "And so, the attorneys are going to advise on what's the best practice as far as PR and policy and then what they learn through the independent investigation."

 

Banfield said that it may be premature for the ABOR to make a decision today to fire Miller. But, he said - he is not sure exactly how much or how little information they have.

 

The Wildcats are also wondering if their head coach will be on the sidelines Thursday night in Tucson when they take on Stanford at 8:00 in Tucson.