Last Saturday, West Virginia and longtime head coach Bob Huggins parted ways after Huggins was arrest for driving under the influence in Pittsburgh on Friday.
A week following the arrest and West Virginia — to some surprise — has not named a new head coach. West Virginia seemingly had two routes to go in this: hire an interim and conduct a larger search again next spring or hire a full-time replacement.
Timeline
There seems to be a timeline on the coaching search and for the first time we can officially say the end is near. Jeff Goodman reports that the search will be concluded by the end of the weekend.
Candidates
While the full number of candidates remains unclear, Goodman also reported that WVU is talking to Andy Kennedy of UAB, as well as current assistant coaches Ron Everhart and Josh Eilert. WVU is meeting with Kennedy through zoom on Friday. Kennedy’s name has been surrounded by some uncertainty as some made it seem like he was the clear favorite for the job earlier in the week, before he tweeted out a message showing his loyalty to his current school UAB on Wednesday night.
Kennedy is related through the Huggins coaching tree and he is 56-18 with a Conference USA title to his name over the past two seasons.
Portal
The transfer portal is West Virginia’s worst enemy as far as this upcoming season is concerned. Tre Mitchell was the first entry on Thursday, followed by two guards in Kerr Kriisa and Joe Toussaint on Friday. Despite the bad news with them entering the portal, they all can still return to West Virginia and depending on who is hired as head coach will probably determine that decision.
Kriisa told Draft Express he will continue to monitor the coaching situation at WVU and that could sway his decision to come back. Memphis seems to be in play as a landing spot for Kriisa as well as Nebraska, who Kriisa chose WVU over. Mitchell, has been contacted by Georgetown, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Kentucky, and Memphis, among other schools. Mitchell though, is also keeping a return to WVU as an option.
With Mitchell and Toussaint in the portal right now, that is 57.4 percent of the minutes WVU returned from their roster last season. Those two combined for 25.8 percent of all minutes last year, with Mitchell recording the most minutes out of anyone on WVU’s roster last season.
Roster
West Virginia’s roster (still subject to change) now lacks depth at the forward position. WVU was guard heavy to begin with, but they were looking at Mitchell to provide a big boost.
WVU still has Jose Perez, Omar Silverio, Seth Wilson and RaeQuan Battle at the guard positions. At forward, they have two more traditional forwards in Josiah Harris and Patrick Suemnick. Then at the five position they have Jesse Edwards, James Okonkwo, and Mohamed Wague remaining.
