Their respective women's basketball coaches left under very different terms, but Columbia and Yale have each hired replacements for the 2005-2006 season.
Former Lions head coach Traci Waites resigned suddenly and mysteriously in the beginning of February, citing personal reasons, and was replaced by assistant Tory Verdi for the rest of the year.
Yesterday, Columbia announced the hiring of Paul Nixon, a former assistant at Indiana. He also spent three years as an assistant at Southern Mississippi, two at Nevada and four at Marshall.
The 1993 Vanderbilt alumnus was a student manager with the men's basketball team and a volunteer assistant with the women's squad while in college.
The Lions finished 5-9 in league play and 12-15 overall, good for a fifth-place tie with Princeton.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Waites' departure, Amy Backus retired from Yale after six seasons at the end of a long career in college basketball.
On Monday, the Elis named Chris Gobrecht their new head coach.
She has coached at the Division I level for 25 years, with head coaching jobs at Cal State Fullerton, Washington, Florida State, and most recently, her alma mater, Southern California.
Gobrecht's stints in Fullerton, Tallahassee and Los Angeles were mainly rebuilding jobs, and she takes over a Yale team that has struggled mightily over the past few years.
The Elis have gone 14-40 overall and 8-20 in the Ancient Eight since the start of the 2003-04 season, and were only 3-11 last year, so it appears that Gobrecht will have her work cut out for her again.
-- Josh Hirsch
