The Mountaineers are still without a coach after Darian DeVries left for Indiana just about a week ago, here’s the latest updates on the candidates.
The Mountaineer’s first candidate to replace DeVries was thought to be Ben McCollum, who also replaced him at Drake. McCollum is a four-time Division Two champion and has posted a career record of 426-95 in his 16 seasons of coaching, he was also named the MVC coach of the year in his lone season at Drake. McCollum agreed to terms to with Iowa to become their next head coach on Sunday, Mar. 23, taking one of the Mountaineers top options off the board.
Another option that has been considered to be the next coach in Morgantown is Jerrod Calhoun from Utah State. Calhoun just took his team to the NCAA Tournament but lost in the opening round to UCLA. Jerrod spent time on Bob Huggins’ staff at WVU from 2007-2012 as an assistant before he took his first head coaching job at Fairmont State, leading them to a 124-38 in his six-year tenure there. He has been rumored to have a contract extension from Utah State on the table that remains unsigned as he weighs all his options.
Chester Frazier is another name that could be in play for the job. Frazier spent 2012-2019 as an assistant at Kansas State, then was named the associate head coach at Virginia Tech from 2019-2021 before returning to his alma mater, Illinois, as an assistant coach. Frazier came to WVU to join DeVries staff a year ago and has earned tremendous respect around the program and with the players. Sencire Harris has taken to his Twitter account multiple times to voice his support for Frazier. If the Mountaineers consider promoting from within, Frazier would certainly be near the top of the list of internal candidates to take the head coaching position.
Another name that has been thrown around in the last few days has been Niko Medved, the head coach at Colorado State. Colorado State just lost in the NCAA Tournament in heartbreaking fashion on a last second buzzer beater by Maryland. Medved has a career record of 221-171 over his time at Furman, Drake, and Colorado State. The Mountaineers level of interest in Medved should become more clear in the coming days as his season is officially over. He has also been linked to the Minnesota head coach opening as that is his alma mater. Something to consider here is that, Medved’s wife has ties to the state of West Virginia, being a Morgantown native.
The list of candidates in this coachings search are slim, but Wren Baker in a press conference last week promised that he would work ‘tirelessly’ to find the perfect candidate to come in and take over the program.
