THUNDER BAY -- The Lakehead Thunderwolves men's basketball team is in the market for a new head coach.
The program on Thursday announced they have fired bench boss Manny Furtado after the Thunderwolves hit the Christmas break sitting in the cellar of the OUA West division at 0-10.
"We just felt at this point it's the best thing to do for our program," athletic director Tom Warden said. "We just thought that a change in direction is something, at this point in time, is needed."
Warden declined to answer how much longer Furtado had on his contract.
Furtado, a former assistant coach on two Canadian university championship winning squads at Carleton, was selected to lead a program that had been established as one of the top teams in the country by former head coach Scott Morrison. Morrison, who took Lakehead to the national final in 2013, announced his departure in 2014 after a one-year leave of absence when he accepted the job of coaching the Boston Celtics' development league team.
But Furtado was never able to bring the Thunderwolves back to those lofty heights. In his fourth season, he had a career OUA regular season record of 27-40 at Lakehead. His best mark came in his debut season in 2014-2015, when the Thunderwolves went 11-8 to finish second in the four-team Central division. That year included a preliminary round playoff win over Guelph before being bounced by Carleton in the OUA quarterfinals.
In 2015-2016, Lakehead slipped to third in the Central at 10-9. Once again, they prevailed in a preliminary round playoff matchup before exiting the postseason in the quarterfinal round, this time at the hands of Ryerson.
The Thunderwolves regressed to 6-13 last year and were the lowest OUA playoff seed when they were ousted in the preliminary round by Toronto.
Lakehead opened this campaign with a pair of non-conference wins in September against Winnipeg, the only two victories they have captured to this point. The closest the Thunderwolves have come to a regular season victory this season was on Nov. 11, when they fell 68-65 to the Nipissing Lakers.
Warden said an interim coach will be named early in the new year.
The Thunderwolves resume their schedule on Jan. 5-6 when they host the 2-8 Guelph Gryphons.
