Athletics Director Dave Heeke should seriously consider searching for a new women’s basketball coach to replace Eileen Kleinfelter at season’s end.

Last season, when Central finished 16-12, its first winning season in 12 years, Heeke gave Kleinfelter her second straight one-year contract extension.

But the successes of last season all seem like a fairy tale compared to this season.

“I wasn’t comfortable at this point to extend anything beyond a year,” Heeke said after he granted Kleinfelter’s extension last March. “I think it is in the best interest of our program to evaluate the true progress of the program.”

He was right to be cautious. Regress is a better term to describe the team’s development this season – not progress.

With eight games left in the regular season, Central is dangerously close to finishing with a sub-500 record for the 12th time in the past 13 seasons.

The Chippewas are 9-12 overall, including a paltry 1-7 Mid-American Conference record, good enough for dead last in the MAC West. They’ve lost seven straight games.

Things looked up for CMU in the season’s first half, as wins against less-than-impressive teams such as Saginaw Valley State, Oakland, Indiana-Purdue at Fort Wayne (IPFW), Marygrove College, Dartmouth College and Gardner-Webb had CMU sitting with an 8-5 record heading into the new year and MAC play.

But apparently, making a run at the MAC title wasn’t one of Kleinfelter’s resolutions.

Even a Dec. 12 win at Syracuse looks unimpressive now, as the Orange are just 8-13 overall and 2-6 in the Big East, good enough for third-to-last in the 16-team conference.

And who can forget CMU’s opening season exhibition game, a horrendous performance in a 92-78 loss against Athletes in Action, a sport ministry group.

That was supposed to be a tune-up game, an easy win to get the team ready for real competition down the road.

But in actuality, it set the tone for what is shaping up to be another dismal year with a familiar ending.

It’s not like this hasn’t happened before.

Former AD Herb Deromedi granted Kleinfelter a one-year extension after the 2004-2005 season. Central finished that season 10-18, with just four MAC wins. Deromedi’s reasoning for the extension was for Kleinfelter to be allowed to fully coach her first recruiting class.

After all, she had been given the near impossible assignment of trying to turn around a program that was devastated during the Fran Voll era. Voll was 43-73 after five-plus years with the Chippewas and many recruits were told to stay away from CMU.

While Kleinfelter may have fixed some recruiting relationships Voll had damaged, five and a half seasons of less-than-competitive basketball just won’t cut it.

Saturday’s loss at Miami was Kleinfelter’s 100th at CMU. Her 61 wins during her tenure equate to just a .379 winning percentage, barely more than Voll’s .371 win percentage.

That does not a successful women’s basketball program make.

Anything less than a MAC Tournament victory and a berth in the NCAA Tournament should be unacceptable to Heeke and CMU’s fans.

If that doesn’t happen, then Heeke shouldn’t waste any time announcing he will not retain Kleinfelter as his women’s basketball coach.

In fact, he already should be searching for her replacement.

Because the odds of Central ripping off 12 straight wins to reach the Big Dance are just about impossible.

And unfortunately for Kleinfelter, her time at CMU won’t have a fairy tale ending.

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