Photo courtesy of BlueGoldNews.com West Virginia interim head coach Josh Eilert gestures from his accustomed crouch on the sideline.

MORGANTOWN — The only way to understand what Josh Eilert is going through as West Virginia’s interim basketball coach is to climb into his skin, to think what thoughts are running through his mind, to try and reconstruct the range of emotions he has gone through since the elation of being asked to take the job and since the night of his first victory as a college coach to now.

Think of your worst day and realize that almost every day since he took the assignment has been as bad or worse.

Consider what was going through Floyd Patterson’s mind as he went down to the canvas for the fifth time in a heavyweight title defense against Inagmar Johannson and his “Hammer of Thor” looking at the clock and realizing it was only the third round and that there was time left for him to be knocked down two more times before referee Ruby Goldstein mercifully waved an end to the night.

Eilert came into the job knowing the reality of the situation, accepting that it would be hard enough to replace the legend of Bob Huggins, who had sat on the coach’s stool at WVU for the previous 16 years.

But it was a chance to prove he could successfully coach a Division I program.

A chance. That’s all he wanted.

But, in reality, he never has had a chance.

As an interim he is hired for one year, then comes judgment day. The man who has to judge him is Athletic Director Wren Baker.

“The general public, and you all, the media, for that matter, it’s like an iceberg and you see the tip of it,” Baker began. “You see what happens out there on game day.”

The public and the media are, Baker intimated, like the lookout on the Titanic, seeing only wins and losses.

“I get a chance to see the entire iceberg,” Baker went on. “I’m there every day, I know the behind the scenes battles that are being waged … some that you are aware of and some you aren’t even aware of. ”

In other words, the iceberg is always something far larger and more difficult to navigate than what you see above the surface.

“Just like I said with football, I understand the focus from the public on wins and losses because it’s the only metric they really have a window into. But I get a 360-degree view of everything that goes inside the program, so my goal is to do a pretty thorough review of each of our programs at the end of the year,” Baker said.

“Men’s basketball has only played a third of their games. They have two-thirds of the season left. It’s been a season full of challenges.”

The question that Baker has to see through to the end is how Eilert has handled those challenges.

“Coach Eilert has handled most, if not all of those challenges well,” Baker said. “He will have my full support throughout this season and at the end of the season we’ll decide where we go from here.”

The problem, as far as making judgments, is that Eilert has been involved in a gunfight against a fully loaded AK-47 while he has been armed with a six-shooter with three bullets in it.

Eilert understands what he’s been up against. Life, folks, isn’t always fair.

Eilert was asked how he felt he should be judged, considering all that has been laid on him with transfers, NCAA lawsuits and injuries.

“That’s a good question,” he began. “I just continue to take the approach that I will make the best decisions for the people in this program who I am representing and continue to do the right thing. I know I’m representing the hard-working people in this state; the 1.8 million people who go to work every day and grind.

“That’s the same approach I’m going to have and I’ll represent this university the best way I can and make the best decisions I can for this university when I’m at the helm. How they judge me on that is up to someone else. I’m going to be true to my character and my beliefs and the way I want to run things and do things the right way. That’s all I can do.”

Eilert has learned quickly that you can control yourself. What you can’t control is fate, destiny. It’s in the stars, and that is hard as we, as people, try to shape our destiny, yet it sometimes simply turns its back on us and moves on with a cruel smile on its face.

There is no database upon which to judge what Eilert has been through.

“There’s been so many situations that are completely unique,” he said. “I remember going into it. I got the job and was so excited and ready to take on anything and everything. I had no idea I would be saddled with so many challenges. What do you do but look at it as a complete growth opportunity for myself and everyone involved in the program.”

His season is 11 games old, and he’s never had the lineup he wanted to play on the floor. His distractions were everywhere: Jose Perez transferring, RaeQuan Battle fighting the NCAA for the eligibility that Eilert truly believed was a “no-brainer” that he be awarded, Kerr Kriisa being suspended nine games by the NCAA for an infraction that occurred at Arizona and Akok Akok collapsing on the court in the midst of an exhibition game.

Even in a moment of triumph, as Battle won a chance to play with the team, the guard who was supposed to be the difference maker came down ill, so he could not celebrate that.

So, they played against Massachusetts, and it wasn’t what it was supposed to be.

How do you judge that?

“We were down 18 against UMass and they could have folded and acted as a victim but that’s not the approach I’ve relayed to them,” he said. “We’re going to fight and fight to the bitter end no matter what situation we are saddled with.”

True, Eilert has manned up to the situation. His team has rolled with each punch and staggered with the results, but it has always gotten off the stool in the corner and come out to fight another round.

It hasn’t been the way Eilert ever could have pictured it, this head coaching thing.

“There’s a lot of things in the big chair at the end of the hallway that you deal with that you never would believe was part of the job description. That’s part of it. 95% of it has nothing to do with the Xs and Os. It’s all about leading the program and leading the right way.” he said.

But, in the end, the only way to be judged a winner is to be a winner, and there have been too many landmines along the way to allow him to be judged on that.

They don’t pay $3 or $4 million a year to a head coach for moral victories.