3 replacements for Bob Huggins with West Virginia basketball

Bob Huggins has resigned from West Virginia after his DUI arrest, so who could replace him as the next head coach of Mountaineers basketball?

Bob Huggins was already on notice at West Virginia after using a homophobic slur during a radio appearance earlier this offseason. Now he’s out in Morgantown after an arrest for DUI.

Before the Mountaineers had the chance to fire him, Huggins resigned from his position as head coach of the men’s basketball team. It won’t be an easy shoe to fill since he has been there for 16 seasons, especially in June. However, this is currently the one available job in Division I men’s basketball, so to say it would be competitive would be an understatement.

Because of the exclusivity of the one job left in college basketball, there are dozens of potential choices for West Virginia that could make sense. Guys like Ron Everhart, John Beilein, Steve Forbes, or even Jeff Bohls. Tod Kowalczyk has been named, and so has Bob Richey.

However, these three candidates check the right boxes of long-term success, experience at multiple programs, and having some sort of championship pedigree. So, let’s dig into who is actually in the race for this job.

West Virginia rumors: 3 Bob Huggins replacements for Mountaineers

3. Dusty May, Florida Atlantic head coach

Dusty May is red hot right now. He took FAU to a 34-win season last year and a trip to March Madness. That March Madness trip ended in a Final Four appearance. They had some big wins to reach that point taking down surging Tennessee and Kansas State. With the kind of team West Virginia will be heading into next season with he could really perform some magic there.

2. Andy Kennedy, UAB head coach

Andy Kennedy replaced Bob Huggins when he left Cincinnati. He learned how to be a great basketball coach from Huggins and left all the drama aside. So when he took over at Cincinnati, he performed reasonably well. He is now the head coach at UAB, a team he took to an NIT Championship just this past year. His name has always come up when talking about replacing Bob Huggins so it wouldn’t be such a stretch for the trigger to get pulled here.

1. Tom Crean, former Georgia head coach (2018-22)

If there is one voice in men’s college basketball most of the nation has listened to for decades it’s Dick Vitale. He is the voice of college basketball for most. So when he went on Twitter on Sunday night to say Tom Crean should replace Bob Huggins, some important people were listening.

Crean is an appropriate choice. He has the pedigree and past success. He found success in nine seasons with Marquette and moderate success at his final job with the Georgia Bulldogs improve over each of his first three seasons before getting the axes in 2022. He also took Indiana to a Big Ten Championship during his time there, which was his first coaching job. He has found himself the owner of some poor seasons too, but if we are talking about a solid interim head coach, he could be the guy.

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