Eilert to Evaluate Coaching Staff, May Consider Changes

Josh Eilert was elevated from assistant coach to West Virginia University men's basketball interim head coach Saturday night, a week after former head coach and Hall of Famer Bob Huggins handed in his resignation following a DUI arrest.

Eilert is doing his best to keep the team together after an NCAA rule opened a 30-day portal window which may go hand and hand with which assistants are retained.

Eilert was the longest tenured assistant under Huggins for 17 seasons, followed by Ron Everhart, who joined Huggins at the start of the 2012-13 season. Then, there's DerMarr Johnson. He was added to the staff in the middle of last season after long time assistant Larry Harrison was relieved of his duties.

"First, I'm going to first evaluate everybody on our staff and figure out how they can fit in and then we'll go from there," said Eilert. "We have really good people in place and as much as possible, I'd like to retain them."

"It's early," added Eilert." We're going to take a look at everybody in the program and their role and figure out how we can do things better, how we can do things more efficient. But also, we got some really good people in our program, really good people and I want to bring that out of them."

Baker made it clear Eilert had full control of the program and Eilert will be putting together his staff. However, Baker will help with one assistant hire.

"He and I are going to work together on one and that’s probably some type of senior advisor kind of role if we can find the right person out there, like a former head coach or somebody who can just be there to just lean on because it’s a hard job," stated Baker. "I think for everybody who transitions into a head coaching job the first time, they’re always shocked at how little its about coaching. Its really about management and leadership – it’s a different job. And so, if we can get him surrounded by a support system to help him and I think that gives him his best chance for success."

The assistants' contracts are up at the end of the month, but in a cutthroat business, Baker showed compassion, alerting the staff early they will be retained in some fashion moving forward.

"I told them earlier 'we will not let anyone’s employment end June 30th. Now, I’m not promising you a full year, it may be 60 days, it may be 90 days, we reassign you or something depending on how this goes." explained Baker.

Also adding, "On a personal level, as a human being, that really bothered me for those guys. They didn’t do anything wrong. A lot of times, if we weren’t still considering some other different things, we might have already had their renewals out to them."

Baker also insinuated Huggins considered making some changes to the staff this offseason, stating, "Huggins was looking if he wanted to move some deck chairs around."

Eilert's made no promises to the current staff and there is no indication on which, if any, assistants will be retained.

"I'm certainly going to put people around me to make good decisions," said Eilert.

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