USU coach loosens up; was Boylen gone in February?

USU basketball coach Stew Morrill is generally regarded as a rather gruff guy when it comes to dealing with the media.

Sometimes that’s true.

But Morrill seems to be relaxing in recent years — not in his coaching, but in his demeanor. He appears to finally realize his legacy with USU is safe, not to mention his job. Consequently, his interviews have become better by the year.

Despite being disappointed with a No. 12 seed in the tournament this week, he was able to joke about it. A few minutes after learning his fate for this year’s tournament, he met with the media. As he was breaking down the match-up with Kansas State, he laughed, “You know, if we’d have got a six (seed), you (media) guys would have just been saying we had to win, so, if you want to try to find something on the bright side of this whole deal…there wouldn’t have been a writer or TV station that wouldn’t have been saying, ‘Oh, well, now the Aggies, they had tough seeds (before), but now they should win this one.”

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In case you’re wondering whether Jim Boylen was gone long before it was announced last Saturday, the answer is yes and no, if you ask Utah A.D. Chris Hill.
Asked when the decision to fire Boylen came about, Hill said, “I don’t think it’s an exact time with something like that, but I think it leads in a certain direction, and as you add it up at the end of the year, you make a decision. It doesn’t come overnight but it also doesn’t come at a specific time.”
I’m still contending Boylen was gone in February — a preponderance of evidence — unless he somehow had won the MWC tournament and the automatic NCAA bid.