Irvine Fires Andrea After 158-204 Record : Women’s basketball: Strained relationship with players also cited.

Dean Andrea, women’s basketball coach at UC Irvine, was fired Friday morning during a meeting with Athletic Director Tom Ford, Andrea said.

Andrea’s team had just finished 5-22, its fifth consecutive losing season, and was 1-27 last year. But Andrea and two players said the move apparently was the result of a strained relationship between the coach and his team.

“I got fired,” said Andrea, who was 158-204 as Irvine’s coach over the past 13 seasons. “I just got called in and (Ford) told me they were going to dismiss me or not renew my contract. I’m real disappointed.”

Juniors Kathy Lizarraga and Geanine Hobbs said players met Sunday with Ford and Barbara Camp, assistant athletic director, after another player had expressed concern about the direction of the program.

“I think it really doesn’t have anything to do with the win-loss record,” Lizarraga said. “With a lot of players, he didn’t have any relationship with them.

“I kind of expected it, but I’m still surprised. It’s kind of sad in a way, but I think it’s for the best of UCI basketball.”

Hobbs expressed similar feelings.

“Definitely, a change needed to be made,” Hobbs said. “It was either him or us, and I’m sure they didn’t want us to leave.”

Hobbs said there had not been a threat of a walkout but that some players had been considering transferring. She said the players did not ask for Andrea to be fired.

“We just wanted some things to be changed for the better, not necessarily him being fired. He’s a nice man,” Hobbs said.

“There definitely needed to be more communication,” she said. “We didn’t have a player-coach relationship.”

Lizarraga described a situation in which Andrea had not talked to an injured player for “two months,” and Hobbs said he did not ride or sit with the team for pre-game meals at away games, “as if he didn’t want to be associated with us.”

Andrea said he was told his team’s poor records in recent years were only part of the reason for his dismissal.

“It always comes down to that, but what I got out of the conversation was that I was an embarrassment to the university in the way I conducted myself on the floor and the way I coached my basketball team.”

But he said he did not have previous indications that his job was on the line.

“No one ever came up to us and told us, ‘We don’t like what you’re doing,’ ” he said.

Asked for the reaction of his team, which began to learn of the dismissal in phone calls from assistant coach Jean Ashen Friday night, Andrea said, “I think they’re the ones who helped make the decision.”

An attempt to reach Ford for comment was unsuccessful.