The last time Dartmouth looked for a head coach was five years ago following the resignation of Dave Faucher. The search process took over three months to complete, with over 100 applicants for the position.
The current search for an interim coach is a much different process. Dartmouth will review fewer candidates because a decision must be made in a timely fashion, Bender said.
According to a FoxSports.com report, Dunn resigned after members of the team (3-11, 0-1 Ivy) brought a letter to administrators threatening to refuse to take the court in the team's next game if a coaching change was not made.
Both interim athletic director Bob Ceplikas and team captain Robby Pride '10 have denied such allegations and have chosen to keep all details surrounding Dunn's resignation within the team, simply stating that Dunn left for personal reasons.
Ceplikas was unavailable for comment on Wednesday about the progress of the search.
Until an interim coach is named, first-year assistant coaches Mark Graupe, Michael Brown and Tim Lane will continue to assume coaching responsibilities. The trio coached the team in Saturday's 76-47 loss to Ivy rival Harvard University and have been overseeing the team's practice sessions this week.
In Tuesday's media teleconference of all Ivy League men's basketball head coaches, Graupe represented the Big Green.
Graupe said that the assistant coaches did not know whether the appointment would be from the current staff or from an outside source. Either way, he said, the current coaching staff would be supportive of the decision is made.
"I know the media wants to talk about what happened," he said in the teleconference. "But we have agreed as a team to keep everything in-house."
Without a head coach, the team has been undergoing a different training regiment with shortened practice times and an increased emphasis on individual player development, according to Pride.
"The practices have been pretty good," Pride said. "We're not spending as much time in the gym, but we've been doing a lot more individual instruction with the coaches and we're having more lifts, which we were not doing before. I think it's benefited us a lot already in terms of player development."
While the search for a new head coach continues, Pride said that the team will remain loyal to the assistant coaches as well as look to develop as players and maintain team unity.
"That was one of the things that we talked about when Coach Dunn resigned," Pride said. "We said we would stay together as a team and be completely on board with whatever [the assistant coaches] are doing. So, we're 100 percent behind them and look to stay together."
Pride added that the team believes that it will be prepared for its next game against St. Francis University on Monday, regardless of the lack of a head coach and the controversy surrounding Dunn's departure.
"Having a full week of practices under our belts with the assistant coaching staff will help us prepare a lot better for [the Red Flash] than we were for Harvard," he said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to win. We're pretty anxious to get [the coaching situation] over with and put all this drama behind us."
The team hosts St. Francis (5-9, 2-2 Northeast) on Monday at 7 p.m. at Leede Arena before confronting Harvard (12-3, 1-0 Ivy) again on Jan. 23, this time at home.
