Former Iowa Head Coach is Now the Former UCLA Head Coach as Well

Steve Alford had a good college basketball career as a player at Indiana and was a second round pick in the 1986 NBA Draft.

Since his playing career ended, he has had four head coaching jobs in college basketball but his latest gig just came to an end with him being fired by UCLA.

It is rare that a college basketball coach is fired mid season, but with all the struggles of UCLA on the court, the Bruins brass couldn't wait any longer to part ways with Alford.

Alford started his head coaching career at Southwest Missouri State where he parlayed that into being hired at Iowa,

With the Hawkeyes, Alford experienced many ups and a few downs, but eventually he resigned after the 2007 season to take the head coaching job at the University of New Mexico.

While leading the Lobos to three trips to the NCAA Tournament, Alford once again became a hot commodity and UCLA decided to hire him prior to the 2013-2014 season.

The success at UCLA would have been nice for most programs, with three trips to the Sweet 16, but because it is UCLA and it didn't culminate with trips to the Final Four or National Championships, the heat began to come Alford's way.

Entering this year he was clearing on the hot seat and with early season losses to Liberty and Belmont, UCLA decided to move forward without Alford as their head coach.

The good thing for UCLA is that they are UCLA and they are located in southern California, where they can recruit with the best in the country, so the job will be one that many top basketball minds will be interested in.

My guess is Steve Alford wont be without a job for a while either because of his resume, there will be programs who will be interested in hiring him as well.