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OGDEN — A little over four months has passed since Eric Duft took over the spot long held by the revered Randy Rahe as head coach of the Weber State men's basketball team. But for Duft, having spent 16 years by Rahe's side as an assistant has made the transition to head coach that much easier.
As Duft prepares for his 17th season with Weber State basketball, but first as the man in charge, he's learned a lot in a short time. The way the team had been run previously led to not much needing to change moving forward.
"Obviously, it's a little different," Duft said at Weber State's media day. "But for the most part, you know, coach Rahe, he did a great job preparing us staff; he gave us a lot of responsibility. And so that makes it a much easier job, with the learning under him and his mentorship. It just made it way easier to move over that chair and be in charge.
"And so, I give him a lot of credit of allowing me to have that freedom and practice as an assistant coach; it's made this a lot easier."
For many programs, switching head coaches and moving other staff members around can cause a lot of disruption — both on the court and off — but Duft and his staff don't see that being a major problem. For more than half the team, Duft and his assistants are all they've known at Weber State.
Stability is often a word that gets thrown around when talking about coaching changes and newer phenomenons like the transfer portal. Players want to go somewhere they feel wanted, somewhere they feel they can blossom and develop into the players they aspire to be. For Duft, he feels like Weber State offers that stability a lot of recruits and transfers are looking for.
"The transfers that we've got, I think one of the things that they liked about our program even after the coaching changes, we've had stability here at Weber State," Duft said. "College basketball is very unstable right now and in so many areas, and so they liked the stability here."
For the first year head coach, he welcomes a collection of new players to his team. Following the conclusion of last season, which ended with the Wildcats losing in the semifinal of the Big Sky Conference Tournament to eventual winner Montana State, Weber State was going to need to reload. Five seniors graduated, which left a number of holes on the roster.
This year's team features eight new faces — a variety of both transfers and freshmen. For many of these players new to Weber State, Duft and his staff are all they know. While those returning to the team will remember how things were under Rahe, having so many new athletes with a first-year head coach provides golden opportunities to make something special.
Rahe and his teams had a lot of success over his tenure as head coach. For Duft, the goal isn't to necessarily change much, but to continue to build off the foundation laid before him and his team.
"There's obviously an adjustment," Duft said about moving on without Rahe. "It was different, it was weird not having him around there for a while, but he wanted this.
"For the most part, he wanted us to take over and make sure we keep it going; and so for that, we're really grateful for what he's done."
Though things might feel different for Duft and all those who were familiar with how things ran before, everyone — both returning players and new — is striving to be the best they can be.
"I think the buy-in has been tremendous," Duft said. "I mean, these guys are, they're like I said, they're mature, they're competitive. ... This has been a proven product for 16 years and they didn't think it would change."
With official practices having kicked off this week, the new-look Wildcats appear hungry and excited for the season — a new era in Weber State basketball. With a proven assistant now getting his turn to be in charge, the energy surrounding Wildcat basketball should continue to grow as the team shoots for the goal of getting back to the March Madness tournament — something they haven't done since 2016.
"I think it always goes back to just, you know, your approach," Duft said about his team reaching its goals. "Just one day at a time; just keep getting a little bit better. And we have plenty of good pieces here to do what we want to do and be in the mix for the Big Sky championship. That's our expectation here every year; it won't change. But yeah, we feel like we have the pieces here to be competitive again."
