Caveat: Negotiations are a large part of my job, combined with killing time waiting for the f@cking announcement leads me to this...
I am intrigued as to what they could possibly be negotiating about. If they are negotiating now, that means they didn't strike a deal earlier in the year as was suggested, especially when discussing the longevity bonus. So, I think we can dispense with that theory.
Given that, there is nothing to negotiate. In order to negotiate, each side has to have something of value to the other. As soon as we passed the longevity bonus date, Mason lost any leverage it had to negotiate something with Hewitt. He holds all the cards at this point. Mason already owes him the ~660k salary. The whole tax thing as a suggestion for the delay is unlikely. While he might be interested in something on that front, it is not Ike it is changing things much for him since he already made 660k from Mason last year. Regardless of whether he wants that or not, there is nothing to negotiate. Again he has all the power. Mason owes it to him to pay it over the rest of the next year. Mason would probably like to spread it out, but he has all the power as Mason has nothing to offer him, unless they have completely lost their minds and are offering him more money but spreading it over a longer time. Since Mason has no power the negotiations would go something like this:
let's discuss the terms of your termination.
Pay me
Wed like to negotiate
Pay me
But....
Pay me
Since our "sources" seemed to think it was going to happen today but that was nixed, that would suggest it is not related to timing the news to be after the A10 tournament.
To me this all suggests there is some sort of internal issue that has cropped up. Hopefully it is just dotting the Ts and crossing the Is, but that would imply the decision hadn't been made until recently. If it had been, and it is taking this long, it makes me wonder about the preparedness and competence of the school and AD.
I hope some of the info above is wrong, otherwise it is not giving me a good feeling for the future, even with a new coach.