Dickey Nutt disappointed by timing of firing, says he wanted to finish program turnaround

Dickey Nutt had spent the weeks following his team's departure from the Ohio Valley Conference tournament on March 4 on the road recruiting future Redhawks.

It was all for naught as Nutt was fired from the position Monday afternoon.

The termination of his contract following his sixth season came as a surprise for the Little Rock, Arkansas, native.

"I had an interview with him about three weeks ago and he called me in and we talked about the future. We talked about the plan," Nutt said of athletic director Mark Alnutt. "He talked about how he had to make some decisions and obviously that took the wind out of me but he said, 'Business as usual. Get to recruiting, and I've got to make some decisions.' He said I'll talk to you next week. Well, a week went by and no word, and finally the second week came and then here we are three weeks later and a decision's made. That was disappointing.

"If you're going to be fired, you know, fire you after the game and be done with it. Everybody has their reasons, and I'm OK with that and I certainly respect everything that they do, just so disappointing because I do feel like Southeast Missouri State is a special place. I just think it takes time and takes a commitment and that table will turn. I'm a believer in that. I'm disappointed that I won't be a part of that."

Alnutt cited a death in his family two weeks ago as the reason his decision was delayed. He admitted he could have made the announcement last week but wanted to wait until the student-athletes were back from spring break to explain the situation in person.

Nutt held a team meeting with his players on Monday.

"I told them all that I love them very much and that I hope they get their degree and be the best basketball player they can be," Nutt said. "Had a good visit with them and several of them have been up here and saw me after the meeting one-on-one. I have a special group, I have a special group of guys."

Nutt was announced as Southeast's 19th coach in school history on March 12, 2009. Zac Roman had served as the interim head coach for the season prior in place of Scott Edgar, who was fired after compiling a 23-39 record in his first two seasons and NCAA violations were being investigated. The Redhawks had gone winless in the OVC in the season prior to Nutt.

Southeast's overall record improved each of the first five seasons under Nutt.

Nutt followed up back-to-back winning seasons with a 13-17 overall record in what would be his final season at Southeast. The Redhawks were bounced from the OVC tournament in the first round as the eighth seed.

Southeast finished above .500 in the OVC just once during Nutt's tenure, when the Redhawks went 9-7 in 2011-12.

"I'm very disappointed that I didn't get to finish the job," Nutt said. "I want to thank [former athletic director] John Shafer. When he told me it was going to be the hardest job I ever had I didn't believe him, but I certainly believed him pretty quick because the first four years fighting that probation, trying to get our program out of the depths of probation was something that I wish on no one. I felt like we did it anyway. I felt like we improved every year and I can thank our players for that. I thank all the players that came to me and came to our program under probation and I felt like we made some progress."

Alnutt said that he and Nutt had discussed and agreed upon the expectations for this season, which included improvement in the conference standings so that the Redhawks could receive a bye in the tournament as well as the returning makeup of the team, which had nine underclassmen this season.

"It goes back from even two years ago when he made mention to me that his expectation is to get out of those first-round games in the OVC because obviously it's almost a death march, for lack of a better term, to be able to play back-to-back-to-back games and not have a bye, so even two years ago leading into last year that was the expectation of trying to be able to elevate the standing of this program to be able to receive a bye," Alnutt said. "That definitely was the case this year where, unfortunately, we regressed to be the eighth seed this year. Also the conversation, I just wanted to hear from him about his vision of the future in terms of who we had returning and obviously you're talking about any recruiting or whatever the case might be. I feel that we have a good nucleus, but after thinking about this for a long time just felt that it wasn't enough to convince me that we're going to be in a better position next year than what we have been the last couple years."

Assistant coach Jamie Rosser, who played for Nutt at Arkansas State from 1999-2001 and has been on Nutt's staff since he was hired in 2009, will serve as head coach until Nutt's replacement is hired.

Nutt began his head coaching career at Arkansas State (1995-2008) and had a record of 189-187 and 102-101 in the Sun Belt Conference. He had been an assistant at ASU from 1987-95.

ASU won three conference titles during his 13 seasons at the helm and earned a berth in the NCAA tournament in 1999, but Nutt resigned near the end of 2007-08 season where the Red Wolves went 9-17.

He played basketball at Oklahoma State from 1977-81 and was an assistant there from 1985-87.

"I do feel like the one thing that I feel OK about is that I promised to build this program and I feel like it's better today than when I took over," Nutt said. "I feel like we did it with integrity and we put a product out there I think we could be proud of. I promised that and I feel like in my heart that we've done that."

Nutt doesn't know what the future will hold for him. His sons both have high school coaching jobs in the area -- Logan Nutt at Woodland and Lucas Nutt at Senath-Hornersville.

"I don't, but I'm full of energy and I've been blessed with lots of friends in this coaching world and being on the Division I level for 30 years," Nutt said. "I hope that I'll get that opportunity to coach again, and I think I will. I'm 55 years old, but I feel like I'm 30."