Wren Baker's Expectations & Early Evaluation on Josh Eilert

A game hasn't been played yet, but so far, new WVU men's head basketball coach Josh Eilert is off to a great start.

To think about everything that this program has been through in the last few months, it's honestly a miracle that the roster is in the shape it's in. The staff is not guaranteed to be here beyond the 2023-24 season and with all the drama between Huggins' situation and his ordeal with the university, it's not necessarily the most attractive place for a coach to recruit.

Nonetheless, Eilert held onto key incoming transfers Kerr Kriisa, Jose Perez, Jesse Edwards, and RaeQuan Battle while securing a few additions of his own in Noah Farrakhan, Akok Akok, Quinn Slazinski, and Jeremiah Bembry.

"I think Coach Eilert has done everything we've asked him to do and would hope he would do," said athletic director Wren Baker. "During that time, there were lots of people that were offering lots of opinions on what we should do and the timing of it. But the reality is when we had the situation we did in the coaching change and the portal was re-opened for everybody. There was going to be some roster attrition. That was going to happen no matter what we did or how quickly we did it. You basically have unrestricted free agency at the most inopportune time. We've tried to give Coach Eilert everything he needs to be successful. He's made some changes and additions to his coaching staff. They've been able to make some additions to the roster. We haven't played a game and he's been in his season in terms of practice and stuff but I think up to this point, he's handled everything as well as you could possibly ask and I'm really proud of the work that they've been able to do."

When it comes to Eilert's future, Baker is willing to take it one day at a time and see how everything unfolds before conducting a national search for a new head coach. He wants to give Eilert a fair chance to hold onto the job, as he should.

Some folks may call to get an early start in putting their hat in the ring but Baker respectfully declines stating, "The job is not open."

"He and I have had a lot of discussions about the expectations and how you run a program and the integrity of it that we expect and ethically what we're looking for. We have not and I've been pretty consistent saying this about every sport, I'm not a big you got to win x number of games guy. But we're all very supportive of Coach Eilert and I hope that he has a great year and gives us a lot to think about. If you go back to May, I set the tone for the expectation for us is and that is that we're going to give him full autonomy, full decision making, do the very best that he can do this season and at the conclusion of this season we'll conduct a search for a coach. My hope is that he does a great job and that he's part of that search. As the season goes along, I evaluate every day."

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