By Bill Nestor
Josh Eilert’s 10 month term as interim basketball coach at West Virginia University came to an end last week. The Mountaineers’ season came to a merciful end last Tuesday in frustrating fashion. West Virginia lost a 16-point second half lead and fell to Cincinnati for a second consecutive setback to the Bearcats.
The first was the largest margin of defeat in the Big 12 this year (in any contest played by any team) to conclude regular season play. The latter was the opening game for both squads in the Big 12 Conference Tournament.
WVU ended with a six game losing streak and a nine and 23 overall record. It is the first campaign in over 20 years where the Moutnaineers had failed to accrue double-digit wins. Also, every win garnered came at the Coliseum, giving new meaning to the term “there’s no place like home.” The numbers do not lie and this was a depressing season for coaches, players, and fans alike.
They don’t, however, tell the entire story and they definitely don’t get to the bottom line.
West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker was as transparent as possible when he hired Eilert. Baker gave Eilert a 10 month audition and paid him $1.5 million to do the job. Eilert returned the favor to Mountaineer Nation, providing the same transparency into his dealings as the skipper of the program. Part of that could have been naivete and part of it could have been that Eilert is just a really good guy.
At 42 years old, Eilert had never been a head coach prior to this situation and he didn’t know the pressures that came with the job, or the media scrutiny that was waiting behind each and every setback. He had to try to learn when to speak on key issues and how much to divulge about them on the fly while trying to manage a team. That all seemed a bit overwhelming. Those pressures appeared to grow as the season went on and the defeats mounted up.
From the start, it seemed as if Eilert faced an uphill battle, trying to get players RaeQuan Battle, Noah Farrakhan, and Kerr Kriisa eligible. Also, key performers Jesse Edwards and Akok Akok missed several games due to injury. Eilert seemed to never have a full deck to play with. As a matter of fact, he only had a full complement of players fro nine games this season. That is not nearly enough time to build any chemistry at all.
Forget the best college coaches in the game today, take a time machine and bring back the best of all time in these circumstances.
But wait, let us add another element to this equation. It’s the Bob Huggins factor.
Eilert is a dedicated man who had spent the previous 17 years working for Huggins at WVU, and prior to that at Kansas State. He was loyal to Huggins and would have continued to have been had Huggins not resigned. Once Eilert was elevated, Huggins asked for his old job back, putting pressure on the university.
Guess who is stuck square in the middle?
Eilert had to feel conflicted. On one hand, he was happy to have the opportunity, but on the other he had to feel for his mentor and former employer. Running a Division I program takes total focus and concentration. Eilert was not really afforded a chance to give it his best shot.
After being let go by WVU, Eilert wrote a thank you note to Mountaineer Nation. Instead of being bitter or talking about the hand he had been dealt, he just thanked everyone. That is just the person that he is and tells us everything that we need to know about him. We should be thanking him for reminding us what college basketball is really supposed to be about.
That will do it for now. Until next week . . . take care and God Bless!