Yes, Virginia, you are a joke -- but not as bad as Fresno

As its search for Pete Gillen's replacement wheezes deep into Week Four, Virginia could use some good news. This is the best we can do:

Fresno State's search is an even bigger joke.

Before you wonder about Fresno State's hiring tactics, remember this is the school that hired Jerry Tarkanian. (Getty Images)

Feel better, Virginia? Don't. The Cavaliers' quest for a new coach is a laugh riot of secrecy, denials and impotence. The only thing worse than verbose candidate Dave Odom's doublespeak is pensive athletic director Craig Littlepage's silence. Littlepage is trying to find a coach who can fill up the school's new $130 million arena. Odom's not the guy, though if words were fannies ...

As bad as it is, Virginia's coaching search could be worse. It could be Fresno State's coaching search.

Talk about ridiculous. This is all you need to know about Fresno State: Three years ago it hired a firm called Eastman & Beaudine to help find coaches for men's and women's basketball. Those coaches turned out to be Ray Lopes and Stacy Johnson-Klein. Both were fired in the past two months for alleged violations of NCAA or university policy.

Now looking for Lopes' replacement, Fresno State again has hired a search firm. The firm's name? Eastman & Beaudine.

Fresno State is so clueless, it's determined to pick a basketball coach before it picks the basketball coach's boss. The school will hire its next athletic director later, an arranged marriage that will put unnecessary stress on the AD and coach to manufacture a workable relationship. That's disastrously dumb, which is expected of Fresno State. This is the school that thought Jerry Tarkanian was a smart hire in 1995.

Last month Fresno State concocted an eight-person search committee led by the school's chief financial officer, Cynthia Teniente-Matson, who came to Fresno State in March 2004 after spending her previous 20 years in Alaska. Her bio says she's an avid enthusiast of ice hockey. There's a person in touch with WAC basketball.

Teniente-Matson's committee includes a psychology professor, academic advisor and the school's equestrian coach. Hear that sound? It's Nevada coach Mark Fox and Hawaii coach Riley Wallace. They're laughing.

Wait, no, they're not. Sorry. That's me laughing.

So you could be doing worse, Virginia. Though not by much. While the Cavaliers have an actual athletic director, their search is being dictated in part by president John Casteen, who helped muck up ACC expansion beyond recognition. Casteen, a former English professor who brings a wide knowledge of Macbeth to the search, is pushing Littlepage to hire DePaul coach Dave Leitao.

Before Virginia, Casteen was president of the University of Connecticut, where Jim Calhoun was basketball coach. Casteen and Calhoun have spoken during the search, and Calhoun has vouched for Leitao, his former assistant. Virginia could do worse than Leitao -- Odom comes to mind -- but if Leitao gets the job it should make you wonder who's running this search: Littlepage? The school president? The coach at UConn?

At least Calhoun's in the Basketball Hall of Fame. While Calhoun was turning UConn into a powerhouse, Casteen was chairman of the National Board on Oceans and Atmosphere.