(Wren Baker press conference)
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Less than four months after taking over as Director of Athletics at West Virginia, Wren Baker is now guiding his first coaching search.
This after Dawn Plitzuweit left Saturday, following her first and only season as WVU’s women’s basketball coach, to take the head coaching position at Minnesota.
“I was a little surprised, just because it’s rare to lose a coach after one year,” said Baker. “Coach and I had conversations throughout the year about the progress throughout the program and I made sure she knew I was very excited about where I thought the program was headed.”
Baker issued a statement Saturday suggesting a major part of the move for Plitzuweit was an opportunity to get back to the Midwest. She came to Morgantown following a successful tenure as head coach at South Dakota, where Plitzuwetit’s son, A.J., is on the basketball team. Her daughter, Lexi, plays on the basketball team at Grand Valley State, a Division II school in Michigan. Plitzuweit herself is a native of West Bend, Wisc.
“I do think she’s excited about Minnesota, but her conversation with me was this is not a comparison of the two programs or the resources or any of that,” Baker said. “It was to get back close to home and for some family reasons that really aren’t mine to divulge, but I think it was a time and season in her and [husband] Jay’s life that was really interesting. I hate it for West Virginia and WVU, but most of all, I’m disappointed for the young women in our program, because it’s hard to go through transition.”
The Mountaineers finished 19-12 under Plitzuweit and lost to Arizona in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday.
Less than 24 hours after the season ended, Plitzuweit informed her team she was moving on to guide the Golden Gophers. Immediately after, Baker spoke to the group.
One year after longtime coach Mike Carey stepped away from the program and announced his retirement, the Mountaineers endured a lot of roster turnover, but were able to keep several key players after hiring Plitzuweit. With Plitzuweit now at Minnesota, it’s fair to assume there will be more roster turnover.
“It would probably be hard for me to speculate what the young ladies in our program will make decisions to do,” said Baker, who noted he made a pitch to current players pointing out reasons they could be inclined to stay.
Still, having already begun the search process for a new coach, Baker says no stone will be unturned in the quest to find the best candidate to replace Plitzuweit.
“We spent five or six hours yesterday holed up in the war room starting the process of miring for candidates,” Baker said. “After today, our sole focus will be on identifying the next leader for our women’s basketball program.”
While Plituzweit was considered somewhat of a home run hire for the Mountaineers and helped lead the team to a better season than many expected, Baker sees no reason WVU can’t fill the current vacancy with another quality candidate.
“Our candidate pool will be rich. We’re already getting inundated with calls, emails and texts — and I’m not talking about tens, I’m talking about hundreds,” Baker said. “The interest level is high and we’re going to have a really great candidate pool. Somebody is going to be very fortunate to be the coach here.”
Carey, who was out of coaching this year, confirmed to Connect-Bridgeport over the weekend that he would be interested in a return to the sidelines, whether that be at WVU or elsewhere.
Baker was never involved with WVU athletics when Carey previously coached the Mountaineers, and though the current athletic director called it “too early to speculate on specific candidates”, it sounds as though Baker and Carey will be in contact soon.
“I have not had a chance to meet and visit with coach Carey, but I have a ton of respect for what he accomplished here,” Baker said. “I know a lot of people that know him and obviously most of our staff worked with him. Have great respect for what he’s done here. Probably will try and talk to him at some point in the next few days just about the job, the landscape and what’s changed in college athletics and get his thoughts on the program. Probably not ready yet to talk about candidacy for the job, because we’re so early in the process and I don’t think it’d be appropriate to do that.
“When you have somebody who was recently the head coach and has a lot of experience, if they’re willing to have a conversation to talk to you about the state of the program and the changes made in college athletics, I’m a big data point guy and I’ll take any data point somebody will give me.”
Another name with West Virginia ties that’s been praised for efforts in coaching women’s basketball is current Glenville State coach Kim Stephens.
A native of Parkersburg, Stephens has a 190-23 record in seven seasons as the Pioneers’ coach. Glenville State won the Division II National Championship last season, and despite losing a majority of production from that 35-1 team, the Pioneers are currently 32-2 and play later Monday in a national quarterfinal.
“I’m familiar with her background. I’m unique in that I’m probably one of one in athletic director profiles in that I coached and came from Division II,” Baker said. “I have a lot of respect for any coach has that wins at a high level. The way I would address any candidate is we’re going to cast a wide net and consider a variety of profiles. As you go through the process and start to narrow those down, you’re laying those out side by side. Some people are stronger in some areas than others and you whittle that down and start to manage the process.
“Anybody who expresses interest in the job, we’re to consider, but it would probably be a little early for me to speculate on how that will shake out in terms of any certain candidate. I have a lot of respect for coaches at all levels.”
Baker doesn’t have a specific time frame in mind for when he hopes to announce a new head coach, though he’s hopeful it’ll be less than a month.
“ I don’t want to throw a timeline out there, but I don’t like uncertainty for the young women in that locker room,” Baker said. “I won’t rush just to get somebody. I would hope it’s significantly less than a month, but if I start throwing out a date projection, then you guys will start beating me up when we get close to that date.
“I’ve canceled almost every meeting on my calendar for the next few months.”