The Kirk Speraw era is over at UCF after 17 seasons.
UCF has decided to not retain Speraw, the men’s basketball coach since the 1993-94 season, UCF Director of Athletics Keith Tribble announced Monday afternoon.
Speraw finished with 279 wins with the Knights — the most in school history — but went just 40-38 in Conference USA since UCF joined the league in the 2005-06 season.
“Over a period of years since I have been here, I have evaluated our program to see if we are doing the things necessary to move this program to the next level,” Tribble said. “By the next level, I mean for us to be able to compete in our conference and to be able to go the NCAA [tournament] and really try to find how we can do that. As I concluded that evaluation process, I just came to the conclusion that it is in the best interest of the program at this time to move in another direction.”
The Knights finished the 2009-10 season with a 76-54 loss to No. 21 UTEP in the quarterfinals of the C-USA tournament on Thursday, capping off a 15-17 season.
It was Speraw’s third consecutive season with no more than three games better than .500.
In his 17-year span, he went just 3-32 against teams from major conferences.
“There is no one particular factor, but collectively, I just didn’t think the program was moving in the right direction,” Tribble said. “We had to do that, and it was important for me and for our program.”
Tribble said that the Knights will move fast on selecting a new head coach but that they won’t rush the decision.
“Hopefully (we will find someone) in the next three weeks, so we can move forward,” he said. “That’s my goal. I don’t know if I will make that timeline, but that’s indeed the timeline I want to try to get to because I feel it’s important to move quickly but not too fast and that we have a coach ready and in place to start the recruiting process and also work with our current student athletes.”
Speraw’s best season with the Knights came in 2003-04, when he led the team to a 25-6 record and the Atlantic Sun Championship, a season in which the team was good enough to get some votes in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
They also competed in the first round of the NCAA tournament as a No. 14 seed but lost to No. 3 Pittsburgh 53-44.
Speraw was one of five coaches in the nation to have served at a school 13 seasons or longer, along with names such as Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, Mike Krzyzewski of Duke and Jim Calhoun of Connnecticut.
His best season in C-USA came during the 2006-07 campaign when the Knights went 22-9 and finished second in conference. UCF failed to make the NCAA tournament, but Speraw did receive the 2007 C-USA Coach of the Year Award.
Tribble is looking for a coach that excels in recruiting and luring top talent to Orlando, something Speraw struggled to do during his time at UCF.
“If you’re going to be competitive and you’re going to win championships, it’s kind of hard to win the Kentucky Derby with a donkey,” Tribble said in regards to Speraw’s recruiting history. “We have to have the type of athletes who can compete against some of the teams we [play] year in and year out.”