FORT COLLINS — Colorado State women’s basketball coach Jen Warden was fired Wednesday and immediately replaced by first-year assistant Kristen Holt.
The startling move came just weeks after CSU athletic director Paul Kowalczyk vowed to bring her back for a fourth season. The Rams, an NCAA regular until 2002 when Tom Collen left, did not win a regular season Mountain West Conference game. But CSU posted two stunning upsets in the MWC tournament to finish with a 4-28 record, the worst in school history for a men’s or women’s basketball program.
“Jen has had absolutely no opportunity to get any traction at this point,” Kowalczyk said last month of nonstop player transition in the program.
However, in a prepared statement, he said “I felt it was best to take the program in a different direction at this time. We need to chart a new course that will benefit the overall health and long-term welfare of our program.”
Warden leaves CSU with a 21-69 record and only five conference wins. The one-time Colorado player and assistant coach came from a three-year stint at Boise State where she compiled a 29-59 record.
Holt came to CSU in 2007 after a four-year stint as an assistant at Wichita State. She was also an interim head coach at Radford for a season.
Kowalczyk did not apply an interim title to Holt, saying only they would reevaluate the situation a year from now.
Natalie Meisler: 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
