BANGOR (AP) — Former Maine women’s basketball coach Cindy Blodgett said Thursday she was “fired without cause” and that her team would’ve had its first winning season in her tenure if she’d been allowed to continue as coach.

In her first public comments since her dismissal, Blodgett said Thursday she was first told there was a divide in the locker room when she was asked to resign late last week. After players rallied behind her, she said, athletic director Steve Abbott announced she’d been fired because of the team’s record.

Blodgett told reporters that she refused to resign because that would go against the message she always sent to her team: “You don’t give up, you don’t stop fighting.”

“I wasn’t going to send a message to the players, state or the University of Maine that I was walking away,” she told a roomful of reporters and supporters.

As a player in the 1990s, Blodgett took the Black Bears to the NCAA tournament four times and was the nation’s scoring leader for consecutive years.

But her success on the court didn’t translate to the bench at Maine’s campus in Orono, where she returned four years ago to begin rebuilding the program. Her teams had a record of 24-94 in her four years.

Blodgett, who predicted her team would’ve won 12-15 games if she’d been allowed to finish out her contract, accused the school’s administration and athletic department of a lack of commitment, both to her personally and to the women’s basketball program.

“Perhaps I was naive in my thought process that a place I had helped build as a player would be willing to commit to not only myself but to the program,” she said.

Abbott insisted Thursday that the team’s performance was the main issue. The 4-25 record this season was the worst in school history.

“She’s incredibly hard working as a coach. Nobody can put more effort into that job that she did. I respect her hard work and determination,” Abbott said. “She puts her heart and soul into it. That’s not the issue. The issue is that it wasn’t translating into results for the team.”

He said four members of Blodgett’s team did meet with him on Tuesday. He said they were recruited by Blodgett and were disappointed to see her go.

Under terms of the two-year contract extension signed last September, Blodgett will be paid one year’s salary of $109,772 to terminate the contract.

There was no discussion of a potential litigation on Thursday. Blodgett said legal action against the university was “not on my radar.”

Blodgett didn’t say what’s next. She said she bought a house in the area because she thought she’d be coaching at Maine over the long haul.

Blodgett’s ties run deep in Maine, where she earned the honor of Miss Maine Basketball in high school. And after finishing at Maine, she played with the Cleveland Rockers and Sacramento Monarchs in the WNBA. She later played overseas and served as an assistant coach at Boston University and at Brown.