Rod Barnes said he thought it would take five years for Georgia State's basketball team to become competitive. He fell a year short.
Athletic director Cheryl Levick fired him on Sunday with his fourth season winding down, one day after the regular season ended with a home loss to George Mason.
"The win-loss record simply does not reflect where we want to be for Georgia State men’s basketball," Levick said in a statement. "We felt it was in the best interest of the program to make this change now and begin moving forward immediately."
Barnes could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
This season, the Panthers finished 11-18 overall and 6-12 in the Colonial Athletic Association, leaving them tied for ninth.
Levick denied Barnes the chance to finish the season and coach in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament, which begins Friday in Richmond, Va. Barnes had one year remaining on his contract, which was bought out for about $267,000. Assistant Paul Graham, formerly a head coach at Washington State, has been named the interim coach.
Barnes, hired in 2007 after an eight-season run at Mississippi, in which he was named the Naismith national coach of the year in 2001, took over a program rampant with academic problems in addition to a poor basketball record. Barnes cleaned up the team's classroom issues. Of Barnes' players, ever senior had graduated. However, Georgia State did not make a significant improvement on the court.
This season, Barnes returned one starter and no players who had averaged more than 5.4 points last season. The Panthers were picked to finish 11th in the league. They lost their last four games, and 12 of their last 15. In Barnes' four seasons, Georgia State finished 10th, eighth, ninth and ninth in the CAA.
Last week, Barnes said he knew success "would not happen overnight. But I'm excited because I know what we've done here and I know we're going to win."
The scant support his team received did not help Barnes. In Barnes' four years, Georgia State never averaged 1,500 fans and attendance dropped to 915 this season, the lowest in the conference and among the poorest in Division I.
