Stillwater, Okla. ? Oklahoma State’s first basketball coaching search in 18 years began in earnest Wednesday as the university looked for a replacement for Sean Sutton, who resigned a day earlier.

If Mike Holder is like most other athletic directors looking for a coach, he’ll head to San Antonio for this weekend’s Final Four, during which he potentially could interview prospects for the top job with the Cowboys. But Holder, in announcing Sutton’s resignation, offered little insight to how he’ll conduct the search process.

“I haven’t done this before,” Holder said. “I’m probably going to get a lot of lessons.”

Indeed, the last time Oklahoma State looked for a basketball coach was in 1990, after Leonard Hamilton left following a four-season stint.

Eddie Sutton, who had played for legendary coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma State in the 1950s, was hired then and spent 16 seasons at the Cowboys’ helm, restoring a once-proud program to national prominence with Final Four berths in 1995 and 2004.

Toward the end of Eddie Sutton’s tenure, Sean Sutton was named as the program’s head coach designate, and he succeeded his father before the 2006-07 season. Sean Sutton went 39-29 in his two seasons.

Sean Sutton didn’t return a message left by the Associated Press on his cell phone Wednesday. University spokesman Gary Shutt said details of the school’s buyout agreement with Sutton still were being worked out by lawyers and that those negotiations could continue into early next week.

Sutton had three years remaining on a five-year contract worth $750,000 a year that he had agreed to when he was still an assistant. When asked if Sutton would be paid for those three years, Holder said, “I think he always understood that we were going to honor our commitment.”

Unlike the style used by his counterpart at Oklahoma, Joe Castiglione, Holder likely won’t be a one-man search committee.

“This is going to be a team effort,” Holder said. “I don’t know who is going to be on the advance team to do the reconnaissance or surveillance or identify candidates or actually go interview them, but we have great people in our institution.”

Holder said he’d likely seek input from new university President Burns Hargis and the Oklahoma A&M Board of Regents, which oversees Oklahoma State.

Another question is what role, if any, Oklahoma State megabooster Boone Pickens will have in the process. Pickens and Holder are friends, and Pickens has said that he probably wouldn’t have made a $165 million donation to the university’s athletic department in January 2006 had Holder not been the athletic director.

Pickens’ influence on Oklahoma State athletics is obvious – Holder spoke to reporters Tuesday in a room overlooking what is now known as Boone Pickens Stadium, where the Cowboys’ football team plays its home games. But Pickens’ name was not mentioned during the news conference.

Pickens told the Tulsa World earlier this week that he has had no input on Holder’s decision-making process regarding the basketball program, and Pickens’ spokesman, Jay Rosser, told the AP on Tuesday that “we’re on the sidelines on this one.”