Evans Joins 3 Others Out of Jobs : Basketball: Pitt, Dayton fire coaches. Creighton and Furman accept resignations.

Paul Evans had taken Pittsburgh to five of the last seven NCAA tournaments and at one time this season had a 13-5 record.

Then the Panthers lost seven games in a row to drop their record to 13-12, 7-10 in the Big East, and on Wednesday they lost their coach.

Evans was one of four coaches who were fired or resigned from Division I jobs, including Jim O’Brien, who was fired at Dayton; Rick Johnson, who resigned before he could be fired at Creighton, and Butch Estes, who resigned at Furman.

Evans will stay through the Big East tournament and any postseason tournament the Panthers make. He is 147-96 since replacing Roy Chipman in 1986.

Evans previously coached at St. Lawrence College and Navy and has a 392-206 overall record in 21 college seasons.

O’Brien coached Dayton to only 10 victories in the last two seasons. He had a 61-84 record in five seasons.

“I’m not happy with the decision that the university has made to fire me. I believe it is a mistake,” he said.

He declined to take any questions at his news conference and said his players would not be available to comment.

Johnson had a 24-59 record in three seasons, including 7-22 this season. The 22 losses were the most for a season in Creighton’s 75-year basketball history.

“We were concerned about the program and the direction in which it was headed. We had to be satisfied that it was moving in the right direction,” Tom Moore, Creighton’s athletic director, said. “We had a question of whether Rick was taking us in that direction.”

Johnson said he had not had time to meet with his players to tell them of his decision.

“The timetable decided on by the university didn’t allow that,” he said.

Estes had a 134-121 record in his nine seasons at Furman, but the Paladins slumped the past two seasons and are 9-17 this year.