Coastal relieves Strickland of basketball job

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Posted 8:24PM on Monday, March 14, 2005

CONWAY, S.C. (AP) Pete Strickland, Coastal Carolina men's basketball coach the past seven years, was fired by the school Monday, athletic director Warren Koegel said. Strickland was 70-127 during his time at Coastal and was 42-56 in Big South Conference games. ``The decision was made, after the season, that this program needed to go in a new direction,'' Koegel said. ``We want to compete and challenge for Big South Conference championships and feel that we need to make a change to get there.'' Koegel said a national search for Strickland's replacement was underway. A message left at Strickland's office was not immediately returned and his cell phone indicated his mailbox was full. When Strickland was hired in 1998, he hoped to bring Coastal back to basketball prominence. In the early 1990s, Coastal Carolina was a regular contender for the NCAA tournament, making the field of 64 in 1991 and 1993. But Strickland never had a winning season with the Chanticleers. The closest he came was in 2003-2004 when he went 14-15 and 8-8 in the Big South. Strickland was named Big South Coach of the year in 1999-2000 when he led the Chants to a 7-7 league mark. They were 10-18 overall that season. Coastal went 10-19 this past season, losing to Big South champion Winthrop, 74-62, in the first round of the league tournament earlier this month. Strickland was an assistant for then Dayton coach and current Clemson coach Oliver Purnell when he took the Coastal job seven years ago. He received a two-year contract extension in the middle of the 2003-2004 season that tied Coastal to Strickland through next spring. Despite not having a winning season, Strickland leaves with the second highest win total in Coastal history. Russ Bergman, who coached the Chants for 19 years before resigning in 1994 after several NCAA violations got Coastal banned from the postseason for two years. Koegel said the decision had nothing to do with the way Strickland ran the program. ``Coach Strickland is a class act and made sure that his teams were made up of quality student-athletes, both on and off the court,'' Koegel said. ``We appreciate all his hard work at Coastal.'' (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)