West Virginia, Eilert prepare for emotional senior day
Senior Day is always a wave of emotions and that will be no different for West Virginia.
The Mountaineers will have six players walk with center Jesse Edwards, guard RaeQuan Battle, forward Akok Akok, forward Quinn Slazinski, guard Kerr Kriisa and forward Patrick Suemnick.
Out of that list the first three in Edwards, Battle and Akok will definitely be exhausting their eligibility while Slazinski is expected to apply for a medical redshirt to get back the season he was injured at Iona.
Kriisa and Suemnick both have one year of eligibility remaining in their careers but are set to graduate and depending on what unfolds this off-season could potentially explore their options.
There also is the fact that this could serve as the final home game for the interim coaching staff including current head coach Josh Eilert. The longtime assistant was elevated atop the program this off-season and has spent 17-years in Morgantown in some capacity.
This season has proven to be a challenging one for Eilert, his first as a head coach, with his team sitting at 9-20 overall but it’s also been rewarding in many respects. Eilert inherited a roster that had been hit by departures and then dealt with plenty of challenges with eligibility concerns and injuries.
“There are certain points in anybody’s life where they have to figure out how to navigate,” he said.
Eilert and the rest of his assistant coaches are under contract through the season but nothing will be guaranteed after that as a national search is expected to be conducted to fill the head coaching role. That doesn’t mean Eilert won’t be considered, but it will indeed be an open search.
Eilert believes he has learned a lot about leading a program which those around him and throughout the coaching industry told him he would experience this season.
“You will learn more from this year than you will the rest of your coaching career,” he said.
And they aren’t wrong as Eilert has dealt with a laundry list of challenges that could be unique to this situation considering all of the things that this team has dealt with throughout the year. It didn’t help matters that the team didn’t really have enough time to develop chemistry which has hurt them.
He also had the unique battle of trying to recruit future athletes without any type of guaranteed contract. That allowed the coaches to focus on the future in the 2025 class and allow his assistants to create relationships without knowing if they’d be there to coach them. Still, Eilert made his coaches approach things as if they were under contract for several years.
The head coach hopes to close the season strong and admittedly was frustrated by his team with how the wind came out of their sails and closed the final couple minutes against Texas Tech. Eilert believes his team has skill but has struggled with the size, strength and physicality of trying to compete in a conference as tough as the Big 12.
Still, even with all that has unfolded Eilert is grateful for the experience this season and it certaintly hasn’t turned Eilert off of the coaching experience in general.
“It hasn’t soured it in any way. At the end of the day it’s about pouring yourself into young men,” he said.
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