And, in the process, starts off a rather sizable discussion between knowledgeable Twitterers of his potential to take the job at Maryland.
Every conference sends a representative to the NCAA selection committee, and one person, usually an AD on the committee, is selected to chair the committee. Last year, it was Ohio State's AD. In 2012, it will be Jeff Hathaway, UConn's AD and potential Maryland AD target. This is supposedly one of the most prestigious titles an AD can hold, so it likely makes him slightly more attractive as a candidate and boosts his resume a tad.
(And yes, it's really weird that UConn is under investigation for eight hoops violations and Hathaway will now be chairing one of their most important committees. Brilliant organization, that NCAA).
There's an interesting twist here, though: if he ends up at Maryland, he'll have to give up the committee chair position, because the ACC already has a representative on the committee. Jeff Goodman thinks that he'd still take the job at Maryland and give up the committee chair position; Jerry Palm seems quite more skeptical. And Andy Katz, just because he can't let discussions like this pass without throwing out his opinion, thinks it'd be "awkward" and "bad timing" for Hathaway to take the Maryland job with so much on the line with UConn's potential sanctions.
Hathaway has been a candidate since day one and has been rumored to be interested in the job. He's the most attainable "big name" candidate Maryland could grab. The potential sanctions he'd face at UConn probably makes jumping ship for Maryland even more attractive, though it also makes him less attractive to Maryland. This is the first (and maybe only) thing really pulling him toward staying at UConn outside of pure loyalty.
The AD search committee got together a few days ago, so I'm sure there are plenty of names out there, some that have been speculated and even more that haven't. I can't stress enough that the people we've talked about make up a minority of the "candidates" to this point, and we probably won't know them for some time. It figures to be an interesting search.
(PS: I'm still on the Castiglione bandwagon).