Huggins Offered Some Suggestions During Coaching Search

Wren Baker received the opinion of the Hall of Fame coach.

There aren't many people who know the men's basketball program at West Virginia University better than Bob Huggins and Josh Eilert.

The two have spent the last 16 years together in Morgantown and helped lead the program to a Big East championship, its first Final Four appearance since 1959, and three consecutive Big 12 Conference championship appearances.

So although Eilert doesn't have any prior head coaching experience, it makes sense as to why he was awarded the interim head coaching job at this time. He knows what it takes to win at WVU and know every aspect of the program.

Before athletic director Wren Baker and the rest of the board agreed on Eilert, they ran an expedited search both nationally and internally. During that search, Baker did ask Huggins for his opinion for both characteristics in a coach and even names, if he had any.

"Coach Huggins and I had a conversation Sunday morning and we got to express our love and appreciation for one another. It was emotional. But I did ask him if there was anybody. I asked him both if there were any characters of qualities I should be looking at and then I asked him if there were any particular names. Now that will stay confidential between he and I. But he told me 'I've got faith in you' and 'go do your thing."

We can assume two of the names Huggins brought to Baker's attention were Andy Kennedy (UAB) and Jerrod Calhoun (Youngstown State), both of whom have served as assistants on Huggins' staff in year's past at Cincinnati and WVU, respectively. Their names will likely pop back up again next spring when Baker is able to go through a more extensive search. But right now, the team needed stability. Someone who has been around and can help keep the team together, hence why Eilert was their guy.

Eilert thanked Huggins several times in this week's press conference and also shared a phone call the two had after he was awarded the job.

"The first thing I think of is the conversation I had with him on Sunday morning. He gave me a call and it was early and he just sounded at peace. He really did. The fact that they had named me the head coach and that I was able to carry the torch and he just sounded at peace. He talked about the day before about how many small mouth bass he caught on the lake, so he's getting some time to reflect on some things. I know he's got an extreme amount of remorse from what happened in the last month and 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."

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