When the new head men’s basketball coach is eventually hired, West Virginia will have gone through a period with four head coaches over the past four seasons.
That certainly hasn’t been the norm for the Mountaineers as prior to this stretch, there were three head coaches from 1978 to the summer of 2023 in Gale Catlett, John Beilein, and Bob Huggins.
Two of those are Hall of Famers, while Catlett is the winningest coach in program history.
But once Huggins resigned due to off-the-court issues, West Virginia entered a period where things have been anything but typical for a program. That initial search led to the interim appointment of Josh Eilert for a year before Darian DeVries was hired as the expected long-term solution to end the recent wave of upheaval. Turns out that marriage would last less than a full calendar year and now Athletic Director Wren Baker is again tasked with his third coaching search in 21 months.
It’s been a difficult stretch for a proud program which has been to 31 NCAA Tournaments, 11 Sweet 16s, 3 Elite 8s, 2 Final Fours and an NCAA runner-up. That success has been impressive of late too with 13 of those NCAA trips coming since 2005 and 7 of the Sweet 16 trips.
There is of course the 2010 Final Four as well, but the Mountaineers are now on the hunt again for their next head basketball coach. It’s an opening that not only has tradition and success under multiple coaches but a commitment from the administration to continue that.
“We will be competitive in our salary, competitive in our budget, as I mentioned, competitive in all resources, and we will work tirelessly to bring the best person to Morgantown to coach our team,” Baker said.
Having just gone through the process a season ago with essentially a full year to prepare, Baker has a jump start on things this time around and has plenty of ammunition to attack the opening.
The Mountaineers will receive a buyout in excess of $6 million with DeVries departing for Indiana which can be used on the search as well as what the state and its people have to offer.
“This is a great, great job. It's a great community, it's a great state, and it's a place that's filled with some of the best people that I've ever had a chance to know,” Baker said.
The challenge of yet another setback to rebuild the program is of course not optimistic, but if anything the one year that DeVries spent in Morgantown proved that the Mountaineers can provide the resources both in terms of facilities and financial commitment for the right coach to navigate it quickly.
“I think we have the pieces that are there. We just had some setbacks the last couple of years that we've had to battle through, but we'll get there,” he said.
So, the next search is well underway with the goal of bringing another quality coach to Morgantown that this time hopefully will plant roots to build a proud program back to where it’s been.
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