West Virginia to announce plan to move on from interim Josh Eilert, restart head coaching search

According to On3’s Pete Nakos, West Virginia will announce Wednesday that they are moving in a new direction at head coach and will not retain interim Josh Eilert, who took over for Bob Huggins under difficult circumstances last summer.

Here was Nakos’ tweet with that news:

“West Virginia is expected to announce it is moving on from interim coach Josh Eilert today and restarting the head coaching search, a source tells On3 Sports. ESPN first.”

Huggins was arrested for DUI late last offseason and ultimately resigned, forcing the school to make a move just months before the season. So, they simply promoted Huggins’ top assistant and decided to address the situation after the season. Now that the year is complete, WVU will apparently not go the Texas/Rodney Terry route and will instead bring in an outside voice to lead the program in 2024-25 and beyond.

A main reason why the program will look in another direction is that the team really struggled this season. Obviously, there were some incredibly tough circumstances and the roster practically flipped on its head just before the year — all while the team dealt with a slew of injuries, which led to a 9-23 finish on the season and just four wins in Big 12 play.

With their conference tournament loss coming so quickly, plus the very short turnaround between the defeat and the announcement, West Virginia is getting to the table early when it comes to the coaching carousel. Also, given the way the season went, WVU brass has likely been brainstorming the next set of coaching candidates for a month or so.

Eilert puts out statement

After reports surfaced Wednesday morning that Josh Eilert will not be retained as head West Virginia men’s basketball coach, he has now put out his own statement regarding the end of the season.

Pete Nakos had the news this morning that WVU was expected to let Eilert know they were moving on today and would begin a new head coaching search following his one season as interim. His end-of-season statement certainly sounds like a goodbye, but he doesn’t say one way or the other whether he’s leaving, nor has the school officially confirmed that’s the case.

Either way, by the tone of it, sounds like he’s coached his last in Morgantown. Take a look:

I'm thankful for it all. pic.twitter.com/JzAZxG9SnN

— Josh Eilert (@josheilert) March 13, 2024

The key line: “I do not know what the future holds, and quite honestly, I’m at peace with that,” Eilert wrote. He also issued major thank you’s to the West Virginia fans, its leadership, his players and staff, and his own family before signing off saying he’s “thankful for it all.”