An Indianapolis television station has reported that Indiana University/Purdue University/Indianapolis (IUPUI) men’s basketball coach Ron Hunter is in very serious talks with Oregon State athletic department officials that could result in him becoming the Beavers’ new coach.

WTHR, that city’s NBC affiliate, said “the job would be a major challenge” for Hunter, who has won 233 games in his 14 seasons with the Jaguars. He has guided the program’s transition from Division II status to a regular contender for the Division I Summit League’s regular- and post-season championships.

Hunter is in San Antonio for the Final Four. He reportedly met with OSU athletic director Bob De Carolis and the other members of the school’s search committee there on Thursday and again on Saturday. He has not received an offer, the TV station reported.

De Carolis and other members of OSU’s search committee have not been available for comment throughout the process. The new coach will succeed Jay John, who was fired Jan. 20 during his sixth year as coach.

Published reports said coaches Ken Bone of Portland State, Bob Burton of Cal State-Fullerton, and former St. Louis coach Brad Soderberg have also been interviewed this week. It is unknown if the committee has had follow up talks with any other candidate.

The top candidate, San Diego’s Bill Grier, removed himself from consideration this past Thursday.

The Jaguars were 26-7 in 2008 and finished second to Oral Roberts in the Summit League, the rechristened Mid-Continent League. They lost to ORU 71-64 in the conference tournament’s championship game and thus were denied their second NCAA berth during Hunter’s tenure. IUPUI did advance to the 2003 tournament, and lost 95-64 to Kentucky as a No. 16 seed.

IUPUI did not receive a 2008 at-large NCAA bid, or an invitation to the NIT or CBI tournaments despite their excellent record. That may have been the determining factor in Hunter — who turned down the Ball State job before this season — possibly seeking a higher-profile position.

“My sense is that he has to be frustrated by having a school-record 26 wins and being totally shut out of the post-season,” said WTHR sports anchor Rich Nye, a 17-year broadcasting veteran in Indianapolis who is very familiar with Hunter and the IUPUI program.

“He may be thinking, ‘I can’t have any better season and now I’ve done all I can do here,’ ” so it may be finally time to look elsewhere.

Also, his son R.J. will begin ninth grade next fall and thus could start high school at his new location. His daughter, Jasmine, is a student at Miami of Ohio, Hunter’s alma mater.

Hunter is also thought to be in contention for several other positions, which the station could not identify. Schools in his region with openings are Detroit, Toledo, Marquette, Western Kentucky and Western Illinois. According to sources in the Midwest, after meeting with OSU officials in Chicago last week, Hunter reportedly contacted former Western Illinois coach Derek Thomas about possibly joining him at OSU, should he be hired there. So it’s likely one of those other jobs he’s in contention for isn’t WIU.

The Jaguars’ facilities are also inferior to OSU’s as their home court, the IUPUI Gymnasium, holds about 1,000 fans.

“His biggest obstacle here is playing in what in Indiana is considered to be a small high school gym,” Nye said. “He does not have many facilities to attract recruits.”

Their 2006-07 basketball budget was approximately $850,000; OSU’s was about $2.8 million, according to audited figures compiled for the U.S. Department of Education’s annual Equity in Athletics report.

Still, he has built a winning program through player development and solid evaluation of overlooked players in a very competitive market. There are eight Division I programs in Indiana: IUPUI, Indiana; Notre Dame; Purdue; Indiana State; Evansville; Valparaiso and Butler, and schools from all Division I conferences recruit the state, a hotbed of high school basketball talent.

Ten of the 13 players on this year’s team graduated from Indiana high schools.

“He can recruit his home area,” Nye said. “He’s very good with the media, although he’s not used to much media coverage,” since the Jaguars are overshadowed by other more prominent programs in the state.

Hunter is a two-time Mid-Continent Conference Coach of the Year and is one of seven coaches on the NCAA’s Division I Academic Enhancement Group. He signed a three-year contract extension in November 2006, to keep him at IUPUI through the 2012-13 season.

Terms were not released but it’s believed he’s earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000-$200,000, or far less than the $525,000 John earned this past season.

Hunter became IUPUI coach in 1994-95; the Jaguars moved up to Division I three seasons later. He was described as “the face of the IUPUI basketball” by athletic director Michael Moore, and he also won the 2003 Black Coaches Association’s “Images in Excellence” award.

WTHR’s Nye described Hunter as “a very energetic guy who is tremendously enthusiastic. He’s flamboyant, energetic, and does get into his players’ faces. He isn’t belligerent, but is very vocal.”

Hunter played at Miami of Ohio alongside former NBA star Ron Harper and received his BA (1986) and MA (1987) from that school. He assisted at Miami and at Wisconsin-Milwaukee before becoming head coach at IUPUI in 1994.

The spring signing period runs from April 16-May 27, so the Beavers would like to have their new coach hired in time to pursue several in-state prospects who have not committed since being released from their letters of intent when the coaches at schools they signed with were fired in the off-season.