Eric Duft out as Weber State men’s basketball coach
Sources: Duft to transition into non-coaching leadership role
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- Weber State men’s basketball head coach Eric Duft looks on during a Big Sky quarterfinal against Eastern Washington on Monday, March 9, 2026, at Idaho Central Arena in Boise.
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- Weber State men’s basketball head coach Eric Duft cheers on his team during a Big Sky Conference game Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.
Keith Webber, for Big Sky Conference
Weber State men's basketball head coach Eric Duft looks on during a Big Sky quarterfinal against Eastern Washington on Monday, March 9, 2026, at Idaho Central Arena in Boise.
OGDEN — For the first time in 20 years, Weber State will begin a search to hire a men’s basketball head coach.
Eric Duft is out as WSU head coach after four seasons, sources tell the Standard-Examiner. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly and the university had yet to announce the change.
Sources say Duft will continue at Weber State in a non-coaching leadership role. WSU coaching staff and players were told of the change Thursday afternoon.
Weber State went 66-65 overall and 38-34 in Big Sky regular-season games over Duft’s four seasons at the helm. Duft has coached at WSU for 20 years; he came aboard the staff in Randy Rahe’s first season as head coach in 2006 and was promoted to head coach in May 2022 upon Rahe’s late retirement following his 16th season.
Duft helped continue WSU’s tradition of punching above its weight in regard to NBA players with Dillon Jones’ first-round selection in the 2024 NBA Draft. He also coached the Wildcats to road wins at Utah State in 2022 and Saint Mary’s in 2023 that are the program’s two best nonconference wins in 30 years.
BRIAN WOLFER, Special to the Standard-Examiner
Weber State men's basketball head coach Eric Duft cheers on his team during a Big Sky Conference game Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026, at the Dee Events Center in Ogden.
But the Wildcats finished no higher than third place in four Big Sky regular seasons, finishing fourth or tied for fourth twice and suffering through a ninth-place finish one year ago. Led by landing All-Big Sky First Team guard Tijan Saine Jr., a Division II transfer, WSU bounced back from its 5-13 Big Sky campaign with a 10-8 mark this season.
WSU reached the Big Sky tournament semifinals only once in Duft’s four seasons. The Wildcats have gone 10 years since their last tournament title and now have a nine-year drought since their last appearance in the tournament championship game.
With a new head coach on the horizon, bigger programs are likely to take aim at Saine and Viljami Vartiainen, among others, as potential transfer targets. With the caveat that NIL makes everything tentative, WSU was potentially set to return those two and Malek Gomma, Edwin Suarez Jr. and Jace Whiting for the program’s largest senior class in several years.
Players can officially enter their names into the transfer portal from April 7-21.
