When the Dakota Wizards chose not to renew the contract of coach Casey Owens, they said they wanted to go in a new direction. Who would have guessed getting there would involve taking the low road?

The Wizards have spent the better part of 10 years building up good will in Bismarck-Mandan. There have been a few missteps, but on the whole the Wizards have been a great addition to the community.

The Wizards have gone out of their way to present a positive image, most notably through the Reading Wizards program, but in smaller ways as well. There have been a couple of players who have found trouble, but generally speaking they've been on their best behavior while with the Wizards. Coaches Duane Ticknor, Dave Joerger and Casey Owens gave fans a team they could be proud to root for.

That's what made the news that the club had interviewed notorious former Baylor coach Dave Bliss all the more stunning. It was an appalling lapse of judgment that was out of character for the organization.

Interviewing Bliss was a huge mistake, and remarkably, the Wizards still aren't backing away from it.

On Monday, minority owner Bill Sorensen - the former owner who helped build the franchise from an IBA cellar-dweller to a CBA power, and the man responsible for building up much of the franchise's good will - said they are still considering Bliss.

General manager Jane Link confirmed that the list of five candidates includes Bliss; Wizards assistant Brian Walsh; former Chicago Bulls assistant Bob Thornton, who was an assistant with Yakima last year; veteran minor league coach Russ Bergman, who led the Great Lakes Storm last year; and former Mayville State coach Terry Layton, who also has extensive international coaching experience.

Of course those candidates may also be looking at other positions - for instance, the Timberwolves were considering Thornton for a spot, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune - and may not be available.

Link said the team would likely have its decision made by Friday.

It's hard to imagine why, given the thousands of choices the Wizards could have made, they would opt to associate themselves with a man who was at the center of one of the ugliest scandals in college sports history.

There's a reason that Bliss has become so infamous, that his interviewing for the Wizards job was the first item listed on si.com's "Top Stories" early Friday evening, and why it was being discussed on ESPN's show, "Pardon the Interruption." And I'll bet this is the first time that a column in the Washington Times about "the Wizards" was referring to the Bismarck franchise.

The problem isn't that Bliss was involved with a program that ran afoul of the NCAA. There are dozens of coaches who fill that bill. Talking to virtually any of them wouldn't have raised an eyebrow. Was there any outrage when Yakima hired Bill Bayno -whose UNLV program was sanctioned by the NCAA - a few years back? No.

The Bliss case was completely different, because it wasn't a story about money, or drugs or academic fraud -the kind of corruption that has become run-of-the-mill in big-time college sports.

Bliss could have been guilty of all the other things the NCAA turned up in its investigation of Baylor, and he still may have been a sympathetic figure because of the tragic death of one of his players, Patrick Dennehy, at the hand of a former Bears player.

But what Bliss was accused of doing to Dennehy after the murder - trying to portray the dead player as a drug dealer to cover up his own misdeeds - went beyond a simple mistake.

If Bliss is like any other college coach anywhere, in any sport, he likely made promises to the Dennehy family that their son would be in good hands at Baylor, that he would look out for him.

Yet in their darkest hour, when any parent's worst nightmare came true and they had to bury their own child, he betrayed that trust in despicable fashion.

Sorensen noted that he was not the one making the decisions, that primary owner Steve McCormick, who could not be reached Monday evening, was. But Sorensen added that even though Bliss made mistakes that were "significant," he said he too would have been willing to grant Bliss an interview. That's surprising given the knack the former Bismarck mayor has for public relations.

No doubt many fans are willing to forgive anything so long as the team is winning. But many others are going to be put off by the thought of somebody with Bliss' track record on the sidelines.

As hard as it is to turn a profit in minor league basketball - and even with the Wizards putting championship-caliber teams on the floor the past six seasons, it's not easy - why risk alienating a large percentage of your fan base?

But even if you're cynical enough to believe that wins and losses alone will determine the size of the team's following, pursuing Bliss still doesn't add up.

Sure, Bliss has shown he can win basketball games. More than 500 victories at the Division I level is proof positive of that.

But winning in the CBA involves constant recruiting of talent. And after what Bliss did at Baylor, what player would want to play for him?

In the past two years the Wizards have let Joerger - who merely has won four championships in his five seasons as a head coach - get away.

They shoved Owens, whose team had the best record in the CBA in his one season, out the door.

Now they have risked losing Walsh, a well-respected assistant who had been presumed the favorite to land the job, and for what? To be known as the team that wanted Dave Bliss?

Some new direction.

(Lou Babiarz is the Tribune sports editor.)