All That's Left is the Official Presser

It looks like it's as official as official gets: Your next Michigan men's basketball coach will be John Beilein.

From the Ann Arbor News:

West Virginia's John Beilein has agreed to be Michigan's men's basketball coach, four independent sources told The News Monday night.

Reached via phone, Michigan athletic director Bill Martin declined to confirm or deny the story.

Earlier Monday, a source confirmed Michigan had offered Beilein a contract, but said there was no timetable for a decision.

MGoBlog, Michigan Sports Center, and Maize n Brew have each confirmed the report through various sources.

Once the initial explosion of speculation occurred after Amaker's firing cleared out, this apparently became a rather narrow coaching search pretty quickly. But Michigan may not have had much choice once several other jobs opened up around the country. I'm guessing we'll never quite know the truth on that, though perhaps the introductory press conference will be enlightening. Hey, you never know.

By the way, it's not yet clear if Beilein will be introduced tomorrow. The first thing on the coach's agenda for Tuesday is to meet with his West Virginia squad and give them the news first-hand.

Here's some biographical info on Beilein, courtesy of the Ann Arbor News' Nathan Fenno.

From the Take It or Leave It Bureau, the Detroit News' Terry Foster says he hears that Beilein isn't interested in recruiting Detroit or Flint. Yet he doesn't pass along where he's heard such things, either. (Foster also said he heard Beilein may have soured on the Michigan job, which is obviously untrue one day later.)

▪▪ Meanwhile, it's also now being reported that Iowa has hired Butler's Todd Lickliter for their head coaching vacancy. And he will be introduced on Tuesday. (Here's the official announcement from the University of Iowa.) Does that affect how you feel about Michigan's choice, by any chance? Just curious.

Here's more on that from Steve Alford's Hair Gel.