University of Nebraska at Omaha head women's basketball coach Lisa Carlsen has resigned, Athletic Director Bob Danenhauer said Tuesday night. Carlsen will be on the bench for the Mavericks' final two games this weekend at Sapp Fieldhouse.
"Lisa came to me today and offered her resignation and I have accepted it," Danenhauer said. "We will begin the search for a new head coach immediately. I know that she is very disappointed in the way the season has gone, but I want to thank her for her four seasons of committment and dedication to the women on this team and to our athletic department. I wish her nothing but the best in the future."
The Mavericks are 5-20 currently under Carlsen in 2003-04, her fourth at UNO as the head coach. Her teams are a combined 36-72 over that period overall and 18-46 in the North Central Conference. Carlsen's teams finished eighth, eighth, fifth and eighth in the NCC and qualified for the post-season league tournament once, in 2003, bowing out in the first round.
The Earling, Iowa, native is a 1992 graduate of Northewest Missouri State where she was a four-time all-conference basketball player and an All-America Scholar Athlete. She also was an all-conference softball player for the Bearcats. Carlsen earned her master's degree from UNO in 1994.
Her coaching career has taken her to the College of St. Mary in Omaha, where she was the school's head softball coach from 1994-97, building a 107-30 record, and to Wayne (Neb.) State College, where she served in the same capacity in 1997-98, going 13-21 in one season. She joined the UNO basketball staff as an assistant coach in 1998 and was elevated to acting head coach when Paula Buscher resigned to become the head coach at Bradley. Carlsen was appointed UNO's permanent head women's basketball coach during her first season, 2000-01.
The 2003-04 Mavericks are a young team with no seniors and have been plagued with injuries this season. Of the three juniors on the team, one was lost for the entire conference season with a knee injury and the other played sparingly while recovering from knee surgery last fall. Two additional players never played due to injuries.
"I am appreciative of the opportunity I have had here at the University of Nebraska at Omaha," Carlsen said. "I have enjoyed coaching a tremendous group of young women and I wish the current student-athletes much success in the future. I have learned a great deal at this institution and have grown professionally due to the experience."