GUNNISON, Colo.  Western Colorado University head men's basketball coach Bradd Schafer announced on Tuesday his resignation from the program.

A 2001 graduate of Western, Schaffer led the Mountaineer program for the last nine seasons, beginning with the 2014-15 campaign.

His 2017-18 squad earned a bid to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament for the first time since the 2011-12 season. And though his 2019-20 team fell one game shy of the RMAC tournament, that team chased a postseason berth to the last weekend by winning each of its final six games.

The most recent four seasons saw Schaffer shepherd his program to the 2021 RMAC Brechler Award, presented in each RMAC sport to the program with the highest cumulative GPA; a 2021 National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Team Academic Excellence honor along with four individuals earning a place on the NABC Honors Court; and the seventh, eighth and ninth players to surpass 1,000 career points as Cole Sienknecht (2018-22) finished with 1,107 points, Matthew Ragsdale (2019-22) accumulated 1,309, and Avery Rembao (2019-23) currently sitting at 1,149 with potentially one more (COVID) season remaining.

In that same time span one player earned first-team All-RMAC honors, one earned second team honors and four earned all-RMAC honorable mention selections. Two Mountaineers earned first-team RMAC All-Academic awards, and 26 were named to the RMAC Academic Honor Roll.

A national search for the position will commence within the week.