Ball in Edgar's court now

Barring any last-minute glitch, it appears Scott Edgar will be Southeast Missouri State's new head men's basketball coach.

A source close to Edgar told the Southeast Missourian that university officials worked out the final details of a contract with Edgar via teleconference late Wednesday afternoon.

The source said Edgar will be in Cape Girardeau this morning to sign the contract, and it is likely he will be introduced as the Redhawks' coach later in the day, although the university had as of late Wednesday announced no formal news conference.

"There is nothing signed right now," the source said. "Barring any unforeseen issues, which I don't anticipate, the contract will be signed Thursday morning, and he most likely will be announced Thursday afternoon."

Edgar, who could not be reached for comment, recently concluded his first season as an assistant at Tennessee, which won the Southeastern Conference East Division title and lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Southeast fans are likely most familiar with Edgar through his coaching stint at arch-rival Murray State from 1991 to 1995.

Edgar led the Racers to three Ohio Valley Conference regular-season titles and two NCAA tournament berths along with one NIT bid. He had a 79-40 record at Murray State, including a 56-16 OVC mark, and he was twice named OVC coach of the year.

The 50-year-old Edgar left Murray State for his only other collegiate head coaching job, a three-year stint at Duquesne in his native Pittsburgh, where he went 29-55 from 1995 to 1998.

Edgar, who has a 108-95 career head coaching record, was the director of basketball operations for Billy Tubbs at Texas Christian in 1999 after leaving Duquesne, and later spent three years as an assistant at Alabama-Birmingham under Mike Anderson, who recently became the head coach at Missouri.

Edgar also has been an assistant for six years at Arkansas under Nolan Richardson, and assisted Richardson at Tulsa as well.

The three finalists for the position -- including former Mississippi head coach Rod Barnes and former Missouri assistant Jay Spoonhour -- all were in Cape Girardeau in the past week for on-campus interviews and public forums.

During Edgar's public forum last Thursday, he said, "This is a sleeping giant. When I met with the players, we put on the board '2007 OVC champions.' That's our goal. I'm totally prepared to take this program back to the top."

Southeast has been searching for a head men's basketball coach since the university announced March 1 that Gary Garner's contract would not be renewed after nine seasons.

Garner's final Southeast squad went 7-20, including a 4-16 OVC mark that placed the Redhawks 10th in the 11-team OVC and left them out of the eight-team conference tournament.

Southeast has had four losing seasons in the past five years, after Garner's first four Southeast teams all had winning records, including the program's first NCAA Division I tournament berth in 1999-2000.