Gary Parrish

I've got a column going up later today about the wackiness at Arizona and the difficult task facing AD Jim Livengood.

I spoke with Livengood for about 30 minutes yesterday.

He was candid and addressed everything.

But one interesting tidbit I didn't get to in the column (but thought I'd share with you here) is the seemingly imminent departure of assistant Josh Pastner. To be clear, Livengood said he still wasn't sure whether Pastner will accept an offer to join John Calipari's staff at Memphis. But it's worth noting Livengood didn't sound like a man who expects Pastner to return.

Should Pastner return?

Actually, Livengood said he isn't sure staying at Arizona is best for Pastner.

He explained why in great detail.

"I have personal experience with this," Livengood said. "When I first got to Washington State ... I had no idea that I wanted to be an AD. But after I had been there two or three years I thought, 'You know, I want to be an AD.' And I was not going to be an AD by staying at Washington State. I needed to go somewhere. And the people that counseled me and counseled me very well would've loved to have had me stay at Washington State, but they would not have been helping me. They would not have been serving me. They would've been serving themselves. So I went to Southern Illinois and was there for 22 months and came back as the AD at Washington State.

"Now I don't want you to misread that," Livengood added, "but Josh's entire career as a walk-on student-athlete from Houston, Texas has all been with Arizona. ... So I would love to have him stay. But I'm also interested in what is in the best interest of Josh. His ultimate goal is very simple: He wants to be a Division I head coach as soon as he possible can be. .. We've talked about it a ton every day. He knows how badly I want him to stay. But at the same time, I tell him every day, 'Josh, this needs to be about you. This needs to be about what's in your best interests' because one of the things I can help him with is if he's trying to become more attractive as a future Division I head coach. That part doesn't have anything to do with Arizona or Lute (Olson). It has everything to do with somebody looking at him and saying, 'OK, what kind of background does he bring to the table?' and that's hard for me to say because what a lot of people would like me to say -- and what a lot of people are critical of me for not saying -- is that he's so loyal and he is Arizona basketball and he's done an incredible job recruiting and he's extrememly popular in Tucson and we need to keep him and never let him go. Well, I don't disagree with that. But at the same time, that's probably very selfish, as well."

Translation: Expect Pastner to land at Memphis in the spirit of broadening his resume and becoming familar with C-USA.

Then expect him to become a bigtime candidate for a C-USA school in Texas in the coming years.

At Houston, perhaps