West Virginia moves forward with national search
It is now official that West Virginia will have a new head basketball coach next season.
In a move that was assumed for quite some time, Athletic Director Wren Baker announced that the Mountaineers will undergo a national search to replace interim head coach Josh Eilert.
“We compete in the best men’s basketball conference in America, we have incredible fans and supporters, we have a history of success and we have a commitment to winning. I am confident we will engage a strong pool of candidates and identify the right leader for our program,” Baker said.
The search is expected to be deliberate but swift as the Mountaineers look to undergo their first major head coaching search for the basketball program in almost 20 years.
There are obvious attractions to the job given some of the things that Baker outlined in his quote as well as the support from an NIL perspective as well as the fan base at large. This past season despite the struggles, West Virginia still averaged a healthy turnout for the home games on the schedule.
This will play out in the coming days and weeks as the current season has closed, and the focus is now fully on filling the vacant position with the right choice. Expect that to be expedited given the circumstances and with the transfer portal looming, but officials will have to wait for some candidates who are playing out the remainder of their seasons.
Still, before we move forward it’s important to look back.
Eilert who was tabbed atop the program June 24 with a 10-month, $1.5 million contract was tasked with the difficult assignment of trying to keep the basketball program afloat in the waves of turmoil that West Virginia dealt with after former head coach Bob Huggins resigned.
Across his tenure, Eilert dealt with massive roster shifts including key players exiting the program through the transfer portal, others dealing with eligibility concerns and injuries. All in all, the amount of movement on the roster reads as if it played out over years not just a few months. And he handled it with class throughout putting the program first.
The end result for Eilert and his coaching staff was a 9-23 record, which admittedly isn’t what he or anybody wanted to see this season including the head coach.
But given the challenges spread out throughout the course of the year and the fact that Eilert was in his first year as a head coach, it can be understood with all that played out this past year in Morgantown.
“I’m thankful for it all,” Eilert said.
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