Charlton Young, Georgia Southern's head basketball coach for the past four seasons, was fired after a meeting with GSU athletics director, Tom Kleinlein, Monday afternoon.

"At 6 p.m., (Monday), I had a meeting with ... Charlton Young and decided that we needed to go in a different direction with our basketball program," Kleinlein said at a news conference Tuesday morning. "Charlton and I met for approximately 20 minutes to discuss the future of our program, at which time I informed him that I felt we needed to go in a different direction."

The Eagles (14-19 in 2012-13) lost to Davidson in the quarterfinals of the Southern Conference tournament on Saturday. Young was 2-4 in SoCon tournament games at GSU. His overall record since taking over the program in 2009 is 43-84, 26-46 in SoCon play.

Young inherited a program that was placed on two years of probation by the NCAA after academic misconduct was discovered in the program.

"He's done a tremendous job taking over a program that had some trouble when he arrived, and getting it to a level of respectability," Kleinlein said.

"At the same time, I felt like where we need to go is beyond where we are right now."

Kleinlein said the program will immediately begin a national search for Young's replacement.

Matt Yogus will be reached at (912) 489-9408.