MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University is searching for a new women's basketball coach less than a year after conducting its last search.
 
On Saturday, Dawn Plitzuweit informed new WVU director of athletics Wren Baker that she was accepting Minnesota's offer to coach the Golden Gophers, one day after her Mountaineer team lost 75-62 to Arizona in an NCAA Tournament first-round game in College Park, Maryland.
 
Word of mutual interest between Minnesota and Plitzuweit was already on social media Friday afternoon while her team was returning to Morgantown.
 
Plitzuweit was officially hired by former director of athletics Shane Lyons on March 31, 2022, meaning her Mountaineer tenure lasted 12 days shy of one year. Prior to Plitzuweit, Susan Walvius had the briefest women's basketball coaching stint, consisting of two seasons in 1996-97 before moving on to South Carolina.
 
Baker, who took a commercial flight from Birmingham, Alabama, where the men's basketball team was playing its NCAA Tournament game against Maryland on Thursday to College Park to support the women on Friday, said he had a mid-morning discussion with Plitzuweit on Saturday and then met with the team after she told them of her decision.
 
Baker issued a statement Saturday afternoon, and then earlier today, met with media in the team room at the Milan Puskar Center to discuss the situation.
 
"The search process has already begun, in fact, I think we spent five or six hours yesterday holed up in the war room starting the process of mining through candidates," he said. "After today, our sole focus will be on identifying the next leader of our women's basketball program, so I won't be available until the process is concluded."
 
He admitted he was a little surprised by how quickly things transpired to get to this point.
 
"It's rare to lose a coach after one year," he said. "Coach (Plitzuweit) and I have had conversations throughout the year, just about the progress of the program. I made sure she knew that I was very excited about where I thought the program was headed. Shortly before the conference tournament, I was made aware that Minnesota had interest in her. I talked to (Plitzuweit) and her agent just to say, 'Hey, we love what you're doing here. You're the kind of coach I want my daughters to play for.' That's about the highest compliment I can give.
 
"We talked about what we needed to invest from a staff perspective and also from just general resources to keep the momentum going," he added. "By the time we got a chance to have a conversation, we didn't get into a lot of details because I think this was more of a family decision for her. Her conversation to me was this was not a comparison of the two programs' resources or anything like that; this was close to home.
 
"I hate it for West Virginia, I hate it for WVU, but most of all, I'm disappointed for the young women in our basketball program because it's hard to go through transition."
 
Baker said his message to the players was to focus on their families and their education right now.
 
"I told them how proud I am of them and made them aware that this program is about a lot of people. It's about everyone in West Virginia, everyone who is an alum, everybody in our department and in our University, but it's mostly focused on student-athletes current and former," he said. "I feel confident that the opportunities here moving forward for success, both personal and with the team, are as good or greater than anywhere else out there, and I hope that they will stay."
 
Baker indicated that he is "fairly open" when it comes to evaluating the qualifications for the next coach.
 
"I want to cast a wide net," he said. "When you start a program from scratch (as he did at Rogers State) you end up hiring a lot of coaches, so I've done close to 20 coaching searches and five of those have been basketball. I've had success hiring coaches and they've come from different backgrounds. I think going into this one it's important to run an efficient process.
 
"Anybody who expresses interest in the job, we're going to consider," Baker added.
 
In the three months since he's taken the AD job, Baker has researched West Virginia's resources compared to other women's basketball programs in the Big 12, and he is comfortable where the Mountaineers currently sit.
 
"Our facilities are great. The way we travel is near the top of the league. Our salaries are roughly top half of the league, and we'll take some time to benchmark that again," he noted. "As I onboard here, my goal is to get everybody in the top half, and once we get there, then we'll talk about getting everybody in the top four.
 
"If you look at our total sports portfolio, women's basketball is one that we put a lot of resources in to be competitive," he said. 
 
He believes the WVU women's basketball job is appealing to qualified candidates.
 
"I think anybody would be lucky to have this job," he said. "I haven't been here very long, but I will tell you this is home. I've moved my family around, and the people here are the most genuine, kind, thoughtful and compassionate I've ever been around. When you look at what we have from a facility standpoint, from a budget standpoint and from a history standpoint – four different coaches have taken us to NCAA Tournaments - we've had success through the years. 
 
"I know it hurts and stings when you lose a coach after one year, I sense that and I feel that, but that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with West Virginia."
 
Baker admitted he has already been inundated with calls, texts and emails numbering in the hundreds and wants to keep those he is relying on for counsel in his search committee to remain private until the process is completed.
 
"The interest level is high, and we're going to have a really good candidate pool," he said. "Somebody is going to be very, very fortunate to be the coach here."
 
The AD said a search firm will likely be used to vet candidates' backgrounds and sift through inquires, but he will dictate what the candidate pool is going to look like. 
 
He indicated the list is still growing but will be narrowed considerably later this week. Baker is reluctant to discuss timeframes but wants the process to be thorough enough to get the best candidate in the shortest amount of time possible.
 
"Forget everything else, the quicker we can deliver our team a coach the more it puts (the players') minds at ease and the better chance that gives us to retain them," Baker said. "However, I won't rush just to get somebody. I want to feel like we've turned over every stone and we've vetted all candidates worth vetting.
 
"I've canceled almost every meeting on my calendar for the next couple of weeks because this has my sole focus," he added.
 
In the interim, until a new coach is identified, Baker said he fully expects members of the women's staff to fulfill their contractual obligation to West Virginia University with oversight by senior woman's administrator Natasha Oakes.
 
"We need our student-athletes to be in good mental and emotional health. We need them to be focused on their academics," he said. "My first expectation is for (assistants) to fulfill their contractual obligation, and my second expectation is if they are going somewhere else to inform us in real time."
 
Plitzuweit's WVU contract stipulates a 30-day time period for the buyout clause to be paid.
 
"Either she or the school will be responsible to pay that," Baker said.

Plitzuweit was 19-12 in her one season coaching the Mountaineers.