ATLANTA – In 1971, a 24-year old assistant coach at the University of Florida was asked if he would consider applying for the head coaching job at the University of South Florida.

Ultimately, the 24-year old Florida assistant didn’t pursue the job, turning down a chance to be the first coach in USF’s program history.

And that was USF’s last chance at hiring Mike Montgomery. On Thursday, I asked Montgomery, the former Stanford and Golden State coach, if he would be interested in returning to the college ranks at USF. “No, no, no,” he said and then recalled his one chance at coming to USF in the early 1970s.

Besides Montgomery, Southern Illinois’ Chris Lowery and Holy Cross’ Ralph Willard both said they were not interested in the USF job.

Lowery had been speculated as a possible candidate, but he’s in the mix for some of the higher profile openings. Willard, who was a finalist for the USF position in 2003, said he was not interested this time around and had not been contacted by USF.

Also, I’ve been told by the higher ups we’re doing away with the comments portion of the blog. Instead, you can go to the Forum: Talk Bulls link at the top of this page. We’ve created the Forum as a place for Bulls fans to gather and discuss various topics.