Reid was fired in the middle of the 1996-97 season after a 1-6 start. Part of his firing had to do with a private comment Reid made to Chris Burgess, then considered the top high school player in the nation and a Mormon whose father had attended BYU; Reid suggested that Burgess had let down the entire LDS church by choosing to attend Duke rather than BYU.[3] Assistant coach Tony Ingle coached the team on an interim basis for the rest of the season and did not win a game; the Cougars' 1-25 record was easily the worst in school history.