TUSCALOOSA — Anthony Grant met with Alabama officials and toured Coleman Coliseum on Wednesday as discussions to fill the Crimson Tide’s basketball coaching vacancy heated up.
Grant, 42, is the head coach at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he has gone 76-25 with two NCAA Tournament appearances and three Colonial Athletic Association regular-season championships in three seasons. He was a renowned assistant on Billy Donovan’s staffs at Florida for 10 years and at Marshall before that.
Grant and his wife, Christina, arrived in a private plane at Tuscaloosa Municipal Airport shortly after 10 a.m. They were met there by Athletics Director Mal Moore, Executive AD Dave Hart and board of trustees members Paul Bryant Jr., and Judge John England, according to Tidesports.com.
Grant met with university president Dr. Robert Witt until around 11:15 a.m. Hart escorted the Grants into Coleman Coliseum shortly after 2 p.m. The coach smiled but did not comment as he entered the building.
He was expected to tour the facility, which includes coaches offices on the upper level. Moore walked from Coleman Coliseum to the Mal M. Moore Athletic Building at 3:45 p.m. Grant left the Coliseum around 4:40 p.m. and was still meeting with Moore in the athletic building at 5:45 p.m.
Alabama was expected to offer Grant the job. However, a press conference has not been set and UA athletic officials did not comment on the visit.
Grant’s teams have gone 28-7 (2006-07), 24-8 (2007-08) and 24-10 this season at VCU. The Rams were eliminated in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last week by UCLA.
Alabama asked for and received permission to interview Grant on Saturday night, VCU athletic director Norwood Teague told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Moore and Hart met with the coach on Sunday in Richmond.
Grant makes $700,000 in base salary at VCU and retention incentives and performance bonuses will pay him around $840,000 this year, the Richmond newspaper reported. He has a $240,000 buyout if he leaves VCU for another job before March 31.
The buyout is reduced $40,000 each year. His contract runs through 2014, according to the Richmond newspaper.
The Birmingham News reported last week that Alabama could offer its new coach a salary of $2 million or more. Tidesports.com reported that Alabama is prepared to either upgrade its practice facility, which adjoins Coleman Coliseum, or build a new one for men’s basketball.
Alabama must replace Mark Gottfried, who was forced to resign in late January in his 11th season as head coach. Assistant Philip Pearson was named interim coach for the remainder of the season. Under Pearson, Alabama snapped a two-year, 18-game SEC road losing streak.
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