Men’s, women’s basketball coaches resign

Brent Bargen and Tim Connealy have resigned from their positions as head men’s and women’s basketball coaches, respectively, Athletic Director Joel Smith announced Tuesday. Both resignations will be effective June 30.

As head coach at CSC, Bargen owns a 78-186 record. In his 10 years with the Eagles, he has coached 10 All-RMAC athletes, two academic all-conference players, and nine honor roll athletes. Throughout his coaching career, he has coached nearly 40 players that have gone on to play at the professional level.

Bargen, a Nebraska native, played for Doane College, Crete, and started for two seasons. He helped lead the Tigers to a Nebraska-Iowa Conference Championship.

He has coached at levels ranging from high school, to D-I. As an assistant at Kansas State University, Manhattan, the team reached the NCAA Tournament in 1996 and the National Invitational Tournament in 1998 and 1999. While an assistant at Long Beach State University, Long Beach, California, the team led D-I in scoring, averaging 83.7 points per game.

Connealy has been the lead man for the women’s basketball team for eight seasons. During his tenure at CSC, he accounted a record of 58-112. He worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 2004, and then as an assistant coach in 2006. In his first season at CSC, he helped lead the Eagles 11-16. He has won the fourth most games at CSC.

He coached All-American, Kaitlin Petri in 2012, just the second in school history, along with nine all-conference players, six academic all-Americans, and a large number of players on the conference honor roll. In 2010 and 2011, the Eagles were ranked No. 2 in the nation for team GPA. In 2010, the team’s GPA was 3.641.

A Chadron native, Connealy also played two seasons for the Eagles.

Messages to Bargen and Connealy went unanswered.

A national search to fill both positions will be conducted, according to Smith.