If Steve Alford was available, would he be a candidate? Resume includes stints at Iowa, New Mexico, UCLA. No obvious NJ ties. Definite ties to Midwest and Big Ten.
Whomever our new coach is has got to love a huge, daunting and spectacularly monster challenge! He's got to have a "let's fix this seemingly insurmountable cluster**** now" kinda attitude!
I've always like Alford, but his UCLA team has really underperformed for the talent he has there, which of course is why the OP brought his name up. Will UCLA retain him? Who knows. Personally, I think UCLA should stick with him, because he has some really good kids coming into the program who are All Americans.