Former Iowa basketball coach Todd Lickliter was in Ypsilanti to interview for the vacant coaching position at Eastern Michigan this weekend, the Detroit News has reported.

Lickliter met with Eastern athletic director Derrick Gragg, who is looking to replace Charles Ramsey, who was fired on April 6.

After great success as head coach at Butler, Lickliter was 38-57 in three years at Iowa, never finishing higher than eighth place in the Big Ten standings. He was fired after the 2010 season.

Lickliter was an assistant at Eastern Michigan from 1997-99. He left Ypsilanti for an assistant job at Butler and he took over as the Bulldogs head coach in 2001. He led the team to a 131-61 record, three Horizon League championships and two NCAA Sweet 16 appearances in six seasons.

At least two other potential candidates for the Eastern job declined interviews, according to published reports.

The Houston Chronicle reported that Texas Southern coach Tony Harvey, an assistant at EMU from 1996-99, took himself out of consideration and declared he would stay at Texas Southern.

Former Utah coach Jim Boylen told the Detroit News “the timing wasn’t great right now."

Former Tennessee assistant Tony Jones, a graduate of Concordia in Ann Arbor, and Michigan native Dane Fife have also been mentioned as candidates.

The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel reports the Eastern Michigan job is the third one this spring that Fife, currently the head coach at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, has been linked to (Bradley and Kent State being the others).

“I'm not going to comment on any job other than the one I have,” Fife told the newspaper. “I absolutely love Fort Wayne. I love our team and the direction we're going.”

ESPN.com mentions both Michigan assistant Bacari Alexander and Michigan State assistant Dwayne Stephens for the job, stating the “position has consistently gone to regional assistants.”

Mott Community College coach Steve Schmidt, who has won three junior college national titles and finished as runner-up three times, told the Flint Journal he is interested in the position.