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The University of Nevada has fired head coach David Carter on Thursday just moments after the Wolf Pack's season ended with a 67-46 loss to UNLV in the Mountain West Tournament.
The story was first broke by Chris Murray of the Reno-Post Gazette.
Carter had an overall record of 98-97 and a conference record of 50-48 (WAC and Mountain West) in five seasons as Wolf Pack head coach. This season was the his third straight losing season and it was the worse of the three as the Wolf Pack finished the season 9-22 and 5-13 in the Mountain West. It was the worse season for Nevada since the 1999-2000 season which was the first season for Nevada under former coach Trent Johnson.
Carter took over as head coach for Nevada in 2009 after Mark Fox left to become head coach at Georgia. In his first year under the helm, Carter led the Wolf Pack to a 21-13 record and a birth in the NIT tournament. After a down year in 2010-2011, Carter led the Wolf Pack to the WAC regular season championship and a 28-7 record and another trip to the NIT Tournament.
That would be the high point for Nevada under David Carter and when the Wolf Pack moved from the WAC to the Mountain West that was the beginning of the descent to the bottom of the conference standings. Nevada finished last in the conference in their first year in the Mountain West but they did bounce back to finish third in the conference as they were led by dynamic guard Deonte Burton.
But with Burton and two other of the Wolf Pack's top scorers from the previous year gone from the team, the Wolf Pack dropped back to the bottom of the Mountain West. Only the academically ineligible San Jose State Spartans had a worse record than the Wolf Pack this season and that led to the ouster of Carter.
There are a list of potential candidates to replace Carter as Nevada's head coach. But whoever the Wolf Pack target as a replacement must factor in that they still owe Carter $300,000 for the next two seasons as part of the five year contract extension both he and the university agreed to back in 2012. Can Nevada find a suitable replacement for Carter without breaking the bank? Time will tell.