I have to believe St. John's is in full control of this coaching search. You have to take into account the facts. What we know, and one of the only things we know for certain, is that we are willing to pay top dollar for the coach we want. Everything else in the papers I take with a grain of salt.
Hewitt is a drop down from Donovan, but its no where near a free fall. After Hewitt, the drop is FAR FAR down. After Paul Hewitt....Seth Greenberg, Fran McCaffery, Steven Donahue, etc are all coaches that would have us as a middle of the pack team in the Big East, in my opinion. I wish someone had kept a list of all of the prized recruits that escaped us in the past 7 years. It makes me sick not only seeing these guys go away, but getting NONE of them. Paul Hewitt will bring them to Jamaica Queens. With the talent pool as strong as it is in New York, I can see Hewitt having much better success at St. John's than Georgia Tech because I can see the majority of the NY talent will not be NBA ready after one year (ie, Corey Fisher, Kemba Walker, etc). Mix those type of players in with some one and done NBA talent and the possibility of our team is tremendous.
Money DOES talk in this business. If Hewitt is playing hard to get, or is mulling the opportunity, the answer is simple: Offer him a 5 year/10 million dollar contract and lets get to it.