Steve Alford has already been mentioned in connection with the Indiana job, but the UCLA coach says he loves where he is in Westwood.
Alford spoke with reporters as his Bruins had a workout on Thursday night in Sacramento ahead of Friday’s first-round NCAA Tournament game against Kent State. He was asked about coaching vacancies, including at Indiana, which fired Tom Crean on Thursday. He started out by talking about how coaches getting fired is part of the business, and then he talked about Indiana and UCLA.
“That was 30 years ago, I was a part of that. I stood on stage with a great group of guys and won a national championship. It’s my home state — I played there — so obviously all that comes up,” Alford said.
“But I love UCLA. I love Los Angeles. You’re talking about arguably the greatest brand anywhere on the planet. We got things going at a very high level now, and we’re very excited about it. We’re excited about being in this tournament and seeing what we can do in this tournament.
“That’s really going to be my comment about that situation because I don’t want that to be what this is about.”
Alford is from Indiana, was a Mr. Basketball in Indiana as a high schooler, became the school’s career point leader at IU, and he is an icon in the state.
He has been a coach at Iowa, New Mexico, and now UCLA, where he had the Bruins highly-ranked all season. Alford’s coaching path hasn’t taken him back to Indiana, but Bloomington might be a possibility now that they have a vacancy and he is coming off a strong season at UCLA.
