Liberty Fires Dale Layer

It's March, which means great basketball and of course striking back up the coaching carousel.

The Liberty Flames mercifully ended last night just after 8 PM with an 80-70 loss to UNC Asheville in the Big South Tournament. By 10 PM the Flames issued a release that head coach Dale Layer had been relieved of his duties as head coach.

Layer went 82-113 as the head man in Lynchburg and his 6 season stint was highlighted by the Flames 2013 miracle run to the NCAA Tournament. Liberty has lost 20 or more games each of the last three seasons and the Flames RPI has steadily dropped each season and was among the worst in the nation this year.

Rumors are already swirling in Lynchburg as to who the next head coach will be. The Flames are still pushing to move to a different conference for football purposes, recently opened up a new multi-million dollar practice facility for basketball, and are looking to add some energy on campus for a rather routinely empty 8,000+ seat Vines Center. Some names that have been rumored to be on athletic director Jeff Barber's list are Wofford's Mike Young, North Carolina Central's Lavelle Moton, and Chattanooga's Will Wade for the school with tremendously deep pockets. Former Flames assistant and current Appalachian State assistant Jason Allison is also thought to be in the mix.