DePaul assistant basketball coach Jim Molinari is expected to be named today as the next NIU head coach.

Chet Coppock of WLUP-AM radio in Chicago reported Thursday night that Molinari would be hired by NIU. WMAQ radio reported that a source within the NIU athletic department said Molinari had been offered the job.

When asked if one of the candidates had accepted the NIU offer without hesitation, Clarence Hudson, associate athletic director, snapped his fingers and said, “Like that.” Hudson would not confirm Molinari as that candidate.

Molinari, 34, has been a DePaul assistant for 11 years and has been credited with recruiting several DePaul stars, including Rod Strickland and Dallas Comegys. Molinari is a 1973 graduate of Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn.

As of Wednesday, the list of candidates had been narrowed to three: DePaul assistant Jim Molinari, Wisconsin-Milwaukee head coach Steve Antrim and Indiana assistant Joby Wright, who reportedly violated NCAA recruiting rules when he and fellow IU assistant Ron Felling tried to get Lawrence Funderburke to sign a national letter of intent.

A Lexington, Ky., television station broadcast a story claiming that Wright and Felling tried to sign Funderburke, a Columbus, Ohio prep star, during an all-star game two weeks ago. Funderburke signed letter of intent to Indiana last week.

UW-Milwaukee’s sports information department reported Thursday night that Antrim had agreed to a one-year contract extension through the 1991-92 season. A reporter at UW-M’s student newspaper said that Antrim told the paper Thursday night that he would be staying at the school.

For a while Thursday, it looked like NIU was not going to make a decision on whether the new coach would be announced today. But at 8 p.m. Thursday, word was finally received from the NIU athletic department that the new coach would be announced today at an 11 a.m. press conference at Chick Evans Field House.

O’Dell had originally planned to announce the new head coach on Thursday. The expected announcement was then pushed back to today, but as time went by Thursday with still no word from O’Dell, speculation grew that the announcement would be pushed back again.

The Huskie coaching position has been vacant since March 8, when Jim Rosborough was fired after three seasons at NIU.