Report: West Virginia signs athletic director Wren Baker to two-year extension through 2030

Wren Baker has signed a two-year contract extension to remain the athletic director at West Virginia, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel. His contract now extends through December of 2030.

Baker has been in Morgantown since he was hired away from North Texas in December 2022. In roughly 18 months leading the WVU athletic department,

He took over the North Texas athletic director position in 2016, leading the Mean Green to 17 conference or division championships across seven programs during his tenure. He is also known for his fundraising abilities, a must in the NIL and transfer portal era, securing 12 of the 20 largest gifts in UNT’s history, per their website.

Prior to his time at North Texas, Baker worked as a deputy athletic director at Memphis and Missouri. He worked closely with football coach Justin Fuente, also assisting in the hire of Barry Odom. Before that, he worked at Oklahoma State under Hall of Fame head coach Eddie Sutton.

Under Baker’s guide, the football and men’s basketball programs finished the 2023-24 seasons — his first full year as athletic director — finished the season 9-4 and 9-23, respectively. While the football program enjoyed its most successful season since 2016, the basketball team won less than 10 games in a single season for the first time since the 2001-02 season.

The poor showing from the basketball program comes after longtime coach Bob Huggins was let go before the beginning of the season. Replaced with Josh Eilert for this past season, he was let go after the 2023-24 season and Baker has since hired Darian DeVries to be their next head coach moving forward.

During his time at Drake, DeVries amassed a 150-55 overall record and took the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament three times – including each of the last two years. He won back-to-back Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year awards at the same time his son, Tucker, won MVC Player of the Year in 2023 and 2024.

Drake was Darian DeVries’ first head coaching opportunity after 17 years as an assistant coach at Creighton, starting under Dana Altman and continuing under Greg McDermott. He took over in 2018 for Niko Medved, who departed for Colorado State after just one season in Des Moines, and found immediate success. In DeVries’ first season, Drake shared the MVC regular-season title with Loyola Chicago – the program’s first conference title since 2008.

Two years later, the Bulldogs made the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid, and after playing in the CBI in 2022, won back-to-back MVC Tournaments to go dancing again.

Drake won 20 games in each of DeVries’ six seasons at the helm, including a 28-7 record in 2023-24. The Bulldogs fell to Washington State in the Round of 64 despite leading late.

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.