Josh Eilert Returns to Morgantown as WVU Hosts Utah

Former WVU basketball coach Josh Eilert will make his return to Morgantown Saturday as a member of the Utah coaching staff.

A longtime assistant under Bob Huggins, Eilert served as the interim head coach for West Virginia last season following Huggins’s resignation.

“I don’t know him real well, but the short time that I had, he’s a really, really good guy,” WVU coach Darian DeVries said Friday. “I’m happy for him that he got another opportunity at Utah.”

Eilert had been with West Virginia’s program for 17 seasons after following Huggins from Kansas State. He was promoted to a main assistant coaching role in 2022. West Virginia finished 9-23 last season with Eilert as the interim head coach and he was hired as an assistant coach at Utah in June.

DeVries, who succeeded Eilert as WVU’s head coach this offseason, said he had a chance to talk to Eilert right after being hired by the Mountaineers.

“Josh is terrific and he was really helpful,” DeVries said. “We met and sat down for a long time and he was incredibly helpful in the transition and anything I needed from his end.”

Eilert will make his return to the WVU Coliseum when the Utes take on the Mountaineers tomorrow. With a sellout crowd expected, Eilert will surely have a lot of familiar faces to say hello to.

WVSN photo by Kelsie LeRose

“I think the thing about it is just you have a lot of people to see in a short period of time,” DeVries said. “From that standpoint, it makes it a unique roadtrip.”

DeVries was an assistant at Creighton for 17 years before becoming the head coach at Drake. While he never faced the Blue Jays while at Drake, DeVries did get to go back to Creighton’s arena last season.

“Last year we played in Omaha in the NCAA Tournament,” DeVries said. “That was a different type of feeling when you’re coaching a different team in a place I had been at for 20 years.”

WVU and Utah tip off at 5 p.m. tomorrow. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.

For a related story, Tucker DeVries is expected to be fully healthy for WVU next season.