Nolan Update

Jim Harris of ArkansasSports360.com says that, contrary to message-board rumor mongering, there will be no press conference this afternoon to announce that Nolan Richardson is the new head coach at Arkansas State. According to Harris, ASU probably won't make a hire until early next week.

Another interesting tidbit from Harris' dispatch: the very tan Mike Newell, the former head coach of UALR and current coach of UA-Monticello, also is in the running for the ASU gig.

Back in the 1980s, it was not uncommon knowledge that Nolan was no big fan of Newell (it's also not uncommon knowledge that Nolan was far from the only member of that club). Nolan's first year in Fayetteville was 1985-86, the same season that Newell took UALR to the NCAA Tournament for the first time.

To mark the occasion, the Trojan athletic department printed up bumper stickers that said something like, "UALR Trojans - Arkansas' NCAA team," a not terribly subtle dig at the Hogs, who missed the postseason with a 12-16 record. That, and Newell's repeated pronouncements that his teams could beat Arkansas, no doubt rankled Nolan, who was then slowly but surely getting the Razorback program back on its feet and taking plenty of crap from Hog fans while doing so.

All these years later, it's strange to see them in the running for the same job - at another Arkansas school, of all places.