CINCINNATI -- University of Cincinnati basketball coach Ed Badger, whose team's 11-17 record this season was the worst in 37 years at the school, was fired Monday.
UC Athletic Director Mike McGee, who fired Badger, said a 'vigorous search' will begin immediately for Badger's successor. McGee said he hoped to name a new coach within three weeks.
Cincinnati, a national basketball power two decades ago when it won back-to-back NCAA championships, went through its worst season this year since the 1945-46 squad was 8-13.
Included in the Bearcats' dismal showing was a 1-11 Metro Conference regular season mark. Cincinnati also lost its opening round game of the Metro post-season tournament this past weekend, 80-65 to Tulane.
Badger's five-year record at Cincinnati was 68-71, including 18-40 in the Metro. Badger became Cincinnati's head coach April 10, 1978, after quitting as head coach of the NBA Chicago Bulls. He had replaced Gale Catlett, who had gone to the University of West Virginia.
Badger had two years remaining on his Cincinnati contract - estimated to be worth $125,000 over the next two years -- and McGee said Badger 'will be offered a position in the UC athletic department at a comparable level.'
McGee said Badger was fired because 'it has become obvious that a change at this time is in the best interest of the basketball program and the university.'
Cincinnati had five mediocre years under Badger. His season records were 13-14, 13-15, 16-13, 15-12 and 11-17.
However, he was named Metro Conference Coach of the Year for 1980-81 after his team finished strong, winning eight of its last nine games. But he couldn't maintain that momentum and the Bearcats' record slipped the next two years.
'I went from Coach of the Year to Coach of the Outhouse,' said Badger.
In recent years, Cincinnati hasn't been able to live up to the reputation it established in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
With All-America Oscar Robertson, the Bearcats won the Missouri Valley Conference championship in 1958, 1959 and 1960. Although Cincinnati wasn't able to win the national title when 'The Big O' played, the Bearcats were NCAA champs in 1961 and 1962 and runnerup in 1963.
Badger, 51, a 1953 graduate of the University of Iowa, was one of the country's most successful junior college coaches for 17 years at Wright Junior College in Chicago.
His junior college teams compiled a 352-110 record and he was named National Junior College Coach of the Year four times.
Badger joined the Chicago Bulls as head scout and assistant coach in 1973 and became a full time assistant coach for the NBA club in 1974.
For the two years before coming to Cincinnati in 1978, Badger was the Bulls' head coach and compiled an 84-79 record.
