Cindy Blodgett didn’t need long to find another Division I women’s basketball coaching job in New England.

Blodgett, fired in March after four years as head coach at the University of Maine, is joining the University of Rhode Island staff as an assistant.

Rhode Island coach Cathy Inglese confirmed the hiring Monday, naming Blodgett and Stephanie Tobey as new assistants and Eric Chapman as director of player development.

“Cindy and Stephanie are both outstanding teachers,” Inglese said in a school news release. “Not only does each of them have head coaching experience, they are both familiar with the region and will be able to hit the ground running with recruiting. I’m very excited to bring in two excellent assistants, and more importantly, two quality individuals.”

Maine hired Blodgett in hopes of bringing a spark to a once-successful program in sudden decline.

Instead, the Black Bears hit rock bottom. Maine was 24-94 in Blodgett’s tenure, including a four-win season in 2010-11.

Steve Abbott was named Maine’s full-time athletic director March 28. A day later, Abbott announced that the school would terminate Blodgett’s contract with a year remaining.

Former North Carolina State and Baylor assistant Richard Barron was named Blodgett’s successor.

Blodgett joins another struggling program at URI. The Rams haven’t celebrated a winning season since 2003-04. They’re 16-41 in two seasons under Inglese, with only three Atlantic 10 conference victories in that span.

Inglese has more than 400 victories in her coaching career, most notable for stints at Vermont and Boston College.

Blodgett was an All-American player at Maine, graduating in 1998 as the most prolific player, male or female, in school history.

She led the nation in scoring twice and finished with 3,005 career points.

Maine made it to the NCAA tournament in each of Blodgett’s four seasons as a player, losing to Connecticut, George Washington, LSU and N.C. State.

Blodgett played for the Cleveland Rockers and Sacramento Monarchs of the WNBA. She was the sixth overall pick in the league’s draft in 1998.

“Cindy brings a great basketball background to our program,” Inglese said. “She had a tremendously successful playing career — at both the collegiate and WNBA levels — and this is something that our players will really learn from. I also think we can capitalize on her experience as a head coach at Maine, as she is familiar with the rebuilding process.”

Blodgett was an assistant at two other New England schools prior to coaching her alma mater.

She spent one season at Boston University and two at Brown.

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