Cameron Dollar tabbed for Seattle U. coaching job

After a search of almost two weeks to find a new head basketball coach, Seattle University ended up looking just around the corner.

Two sources told the Times Wednesday night that Seattle University is expected to hire Washington assistant Cameron Dollar as its new coach, replacing Joe Callero, who left earlier this month for Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.

An official announcement could come today. A Seattle University spokesman said Wednesday night only that he could neither confirm nor deny the report.

Dollar, 33, has been an assistant at UW for the entire seven-year tenure of head coach Lorenzo Romar and has been long regarded as an up-and-comer in the profession.

At UW, he was credited with recruiting many of the players who helped turn the Huskies into a consistent winner and was also lauded for his work with the team's guards, such as Nate Robinson, Brandon Roy and Isaiah Thomas.

Dollar was himself a point guard at UCLA with his greatest moment as a player coming in Seattle in 1995 when he took over for an injured Tyus Edney in the national title game in the Kingdome and helped lead the Bruins to a win over Arkansas.

He got into coaching shortly after his playing career ended and was the head coach at Southern California College in the 1998-99 season, going 11-22. He has been an assistant under Romar since the 1999-2000 season at Saint Louis, moving with Romar to UW in 2002.

Dollar has been close to landing head coaching jobs each of the last few years, including Long Beach State and Sacramento State. He also had some informal talks this year with Portland State before that school hired Tyler Geving earlier this week.

Officials of both schools publicly acknowledged that Dollar was a candidate to succeed Callero, who was 117-105 in eight years at Seattle University, helping guide the school through the process of becoming a member of NCAA Division-I.

That's a journey that Dollar will apparently now finish. Seattle University is in the midst of a five-year process to return to D-I status, which it left in 1980. It is scheduled to play 28 Division-I teams next season including Washington next year at Hec Ed.

However, Seattle U will not be eligible to play in the NCAA tournament until the 2012-13 season.

Dollar will be the first assistant to leave the UW staff since after the 2005 season when Ken Bone departed to take over at Portland State.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com.