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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker admitted on Monday that he had canceled almost all of his scheduled meetings for the next week or so because of the unexpected coaching search for a replacement of women’s basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit.
One he didn’t cancel was one that probably will keep him from having to search for a successor to Hall of Fame men’s coach Bob Huggins.
While Huggins’ contract allows him to coach the Mountaineers for the 2023-24 season, it has a clause in it that he and the athletic director must mutually agree to renew his contract for the following season — 2024-25 — by May 1.
That contract, worked out with then AD Shane Lyons and President Gordon Gee and agreed to in August, 2021, allows him to coach or keep his relationship with the university until June 30, 2027.
That means Huggins could coach next year and the two years after, or he could decide by May 1 in 2025 to take an emeritus at a reduced salary to do fundraising and public relations work for the school.
Huggins is 69 years old and will be 70 by the time next season comes around. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this year and also during the season became the winningest active coach in college basketball.
Huggins has spent the last 17 years of his 41-year head coaching career at his alma mater.
“We’re going to try to sit down sometime at the end of the week,” Baker said. “Obviously, we finished strong, and I said consistently throughout the year, and I know the win total wasn’t where he’d like for it to be or where West Virginia fans would like it to be, but I felt like all year we were a top-30ish team.
“The metrics proved that, and the metrics are not subjective. They’re objective. I was really happy with the way we finished. Coach Huggins obviously has had such a rich tradition here in his career. He’s a Hall of Famer.”
That, of course, doesn’t sound as if there will be any problem here. You wouldn’t think Baker would be involved in this coaching search, either.
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