SBU women's basketball coach resigns
File photos of Stony Brook University women's basketball head coach Michelle Cherry during practice. (Nov. 5, 2009) Credit: Joseph D. Sullivan
With the team struggling at 3-13, Michele Cherry has resigned as women's basketball coach at Stony Brook University, athletic director Jim Fiore announced Sunday.
Assistant coach Evelyn Thompson was named interim head coach for the remainder of the season, and the school will conduct a national search to find a new coach for 2011-12.
Thompson, who will coach Stony Brook - which has lost its last 10 games - against visiting Albany Tuesday, has been an assistant coach at Stony Brook since the summer of 2009. She also has assisted at Michigan State, Buffalo, Western Kentucky and Arizona State. Thompson played two seasons of college basketball for Auburn.
Cherry, who did not return a phone call, was 27-79 overall and 13-39 in America East Conference play. She started as an assistant to coach Maura McHugh in 2004 and was named the school's seventh women's basketball head coach in June 2007.
"At this time, it is in my best interest and in the best interest of Stony Brook women's basketball that I step down,'' she said in a statement released by the university. "I want to thank Jim Fiore, the entire staff, and my student-athletes for their efforts while I was the women's basketball head coach."
