Central Methodist women’s basketball coach Mike Davis has been missing from his team’s sideline since November and is reportedly not expected to return for the rest of the season.

CMU remains tightlipped on Davis’s employment and continually repeats the line that it “cannot comment on personnel matters.” Davis is still listed as the team’s head coach on the university’s website.

Dr. Melissa Mace, the university’s Vice President for Enrollment Management, confirmed that assistant coach Camden Levett will finish the season as the interim head coach. Davis continues recruiting duties away from the CMU bench, she said.

And while the word “interim” is typically used during a transition, Dr. Mace said she believes, in this case, it is used as a “gap stop.”

Coach Davis did not return a telephone call from this newspaper.

Davis’s departure from his regular coaching duties comes one season after the team posted a near-perfect 35-1 record, the only loss coming in the national tournament semifinals.

This season has been less magical by far. CMU lost its opener and has so far posted a 7-7 record. The Lady Eagles have lost their last two conference games, both at home. On Jan. 3, the Eagles lost a 93-92 barnburner at home to rival Missouri Valley College. On Saturday, they lost to Park 76-71. Central holds a record of 4-6 in the Heart thus far.

This is Coach Davis’s 34th overall season and 22nd at Central. His second stint at the helm of the Lady Eagles began in 2015. Before that, he coached here from 1987-2000. He led the women’s basketball team at Columbia College between those two stretches at CMU.