MORGANTOWN — Josh Eilert will have 935 less wins under his belt than Bob Huggins when November rolls around and the 2023-24 men’s basketball season begins.
That fact has not been lost on the WVU interim coach, yet he remains unafraid to take on the challenge.
“As a head coach, I haven’t been one. There’s going to be a lot of questions raised about that,” Eilert said during a press conference Monday. “I have full confidence in myself. I’m not going to sit here and say I know all of the answers right now, but I’m going to certainly put people around me to help me make good decisions.”
Eilert, 42, signed a 10-month contract worth $1.5 million — he made $180,000 last season as an assistant — to become the next head coach of the Mountaineers.
He takes over for a Hall-of-Famer in Huggins, who resigned on June 17, after being arrested and charged with a DUI in Pittsburgh.
Eilert said he talked to Huggins on Sunday.
“He sounded at peace, he really did,” Eilert said. “He talked about the day before how many small mouth bass he caught on the lake. He’s getting some time to reflect and do some things. I know he’s got an extreme amount of remorse for what’s happened. He owns those mistakes and we’re going to move on. He’s been a huge influential part of my life and that’s not going to change.”
Eilert said his first move will be to solidify the Mountaineers’ roster. The program has 10 scholarship players after forward Mohamed Wague elected to put his name in the transfer portal Monday.
He said he will also evaluate the current staff, and WVU athletic director Wren Baker said Eilert has full autonomy to make any changes he sees fit.
Eilert said it was too early at this point to announce what his assistant staff will look like for next season.
“We’re not there yet,” Eilert said. “It’s early. We’re going to take a look at everybody in the program and their role and figure out how we can do things better. Also, we have some really good people in the program. I’m going to first evaluate everybody on the staff and figure out how they can fit in and go from there. There’s no promises, but we have really good people in place, and as much as I can, I’d like to retain them.”
It was Huggins who first brought Eilert to Morgantown in 2007, at first assigning him the duties of video coordinator.
Over the course of 16 years, Eilert kept working his way up the ranks. He said there were opportunities along the way to go somewhere else, but he always decided loyalty and patience with WVU was his best course.
“It’s always been my goal,” to be a head coach, Eilert said. “I’ve had opportunities over the years to step out and do different things. I thought as long as you showed loyalty and showed patience, it’s going to work out for you. I never felt the need to uproot my wife and my kids if I didn’t need to. It’s unheard of, especially in this business, but I think it’s a lesson for a lot of people to stay true to the people who are true to you.”
WVU’s week-long search for Huggins’ replacement, Baker said, came with the idea of looking at both potential full-time and interim candidates.
As time moved on, and Baker continued to hear about the difficulties that existed with trying to find a full-time replacement in June, the move was made to go the interim route.
So why Eilert, who has never been a head coach?
“He is the type of human being you want leading young people and the type of person you want to work with,” Baker said. “He has incredible integrity. I was very impressed with him during this process. He is thoughtful and strategic and honest. He also has a great basketball mind. Lastly, he is a tremendously hard worker.”
Prior to Eilert being named the interim — the news broke last Saturday — his career was in peril.
He admits to working through that by having conversations with his father, who passed away six years ago.
“It hit me, because of the reality of the situation in terms of where I could be a year from now,” Eilert said. “I just tried to keep a level head. Were there times of anxiety? One-hundered percent. I locked myself in a dark room a couple of times trying to figure things out. You have those moments where you try and figure out life.”
Baker first interviewed Eilert over a Zoom call last Thursday. The WVU athletic director then sat down with Eilert for two more hours on Saturday, and Eilert then net with WVU President E. Gordon Gee, before the news was announced.
“He has my full support,” Baker said. “I told him that I view him as the head coach for an interim period of time, but not as an interim coach.
“He doesn’t need to be made to feel like he doesn’t have the ability to make changes that he sees fit to make,” Baker said. “I want him to know he’s empowered in that role.”
Baker reiterated that the university will still conduct a national search for another coach next April, but said Eilert could very much be a candidate.
“The interim status, that doesn’t concern me,” Eilert said. “My staff and I, we’re going to build a great game plan and we’re going to try and win. That’s our mission. I understand this isn’t going to be handed over to me on a platter. I have to earn it, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
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