My conspiracy theory for the day:
Fred had made a decision that he was going to the Bulls if the position was open and communicated this to the front office. Bulls' front office thought "Great, we have our guy, now we can take our time extracting value for Thibs". Fred didn't like waiting around and being used as leverage for the Bulls to get value for Thibs and hurting ISU in the process, so he stated saying he was considering other offers, including staying at ISU for another year and going to Minnesota the following season. I think this might be a rumor from the Hoiberg camp/his agent to try and force the front office of the Bulls to get a move on and start making things official.
I think Hoiberg is likely still going to the Bulls, but is using all of this noise as leverage to get the Bulls to feel they have to hurry before they lose him, thus forcing them to move/fire Thibs already and actually offer him a contract. Just my $.02