Dereck Whittenburg has been fired in his seventh season as the basketball coach at Fordham.
Athletics director Frank McLaughlin announced the move Thursday and said assistant coach Jared Grasso will take over on an interim basis.
Whittenburg took the 40-foot shot that Lorenzo Charles grabbed and dunked at the buzzer to give N.C. State and coach Jim Valvano the victory over Houston in the 1983 NCAA championship game. Whittenburg was selected MVP of that Final Four.
Whittenburg compiled a 69-112 record, including 1-4 this season. His only season with an over-.500 record was 2006-07, when the Rams went 18-12. Fordham was 3-25 last season, including 1-15 in the Atlantic 10.
Whittenburg was head coach at Wagner for four seasons before going to Fordham. He led the Seahawks to the NCAA tournament in 2003.
PLAYER SHOT: A Mountain State University basketball player has been shot multiple times outside the school's athletics dorm following an altercation with another man.
Beckley, W.Va., police Detective Sgt. David Allard said the 22-year-old player was being treated at a hospital after the shooting.
Mountain State basketball coach Bob Bolen identified the player as Alvin Mitchell, a 6-foot-5 junior guard from Miami.
Mitchell's condition wasn't disclosed.
Allard said the player was shot about 10 minutes after an altercation with another man at another location. No other information was immediately available.
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