{"id":184555,"date":"2026-03-29T21:40:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T01:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=184555"},"modified":"2026-03-29T21:40:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T01:40:04","slug":"st-louis-head-coach-josh-schertz-rejects-nc-state-who-is-now-the-leader-for-wolfpack-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/03\/29\/st-louis-head-coach-josh-schertz-rejects-nc-state-who-is-now-the-leader-for-wolfpack-job\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Louis Head Coach Josh Schertz Rejects NC State, Who Is Now The Leader For Wolfpack Job?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The North Carolina State Wolfpack<\/a> appears to be closing in on its next head coach after Will Wade<\/a> unexpectedly went back to the LSU Tigers. According to On3’s Pete Nakos<\/a>, NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan made his rounds on Saturday to talk to a few of his top candidates.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Corrigan reportedly met with St. Louis head coach Josh Schertz,<\/a> Tennessee assistant coach Justin Gainey<\/a>, and Furman head coach Bob Richey<\/a> yesterday. Schertz has been the center of several coaching searches but is opting to remain with the Billikens, per CBS Sports Jon Rothstein.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Source: Saint Louis’ Josh Schertz is no longer a candidate for the head coaching vacancy at NC State,” Rothstein tweeted.<\/span><\/p>\n

St. Louis Head Coach Josh Schertz Rejects NC State, Who Is Now The Leader For Wolfpack Job?<\/h2>\n

Schertz has been highly successful in his five years as head coach, including the last two seasons at St. Louis. He signed a six-year, $22 million contract extension with the Billikens after their season ended.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Schertz led the Billikens to the 2026 Atlantic-10 regular season crown and their first NCAA Tournament since 2019. St. Louis defeated Georgia in the first round before falling to Michigan in the second. He has won 48 of 69 games with the Bilikens and is 114-61 overall with two regular-season conference titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile most of these conversations occur as they should in private, on rare occasions, it unfortunately plays out in the public sphere. Just know that I, along with everyone else inside of the program, realize what a special place this is and appreciate deeply all of you who make it so,\u201d <\/span>Schertz said in a statement read in part on X\/Twitter.<\/a> \u201cJust to be clear on the post in question, I never said I was waiting on anyone to come back with a significantly better offer than SLU. I don\u2019t think like that, and I have never chased money in my career. I have always chased success. The fact is, I have turned down significantly more money this Spring to remain at SLU. So,o while that may have looked like a paraphrased statement from me. I can assure you it was not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Mark Konezny, Imagn Images<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p><\/h3>\n

NC State Turning Attention To Justin Gainey<\/h3>\n

Following Schertz’s withdrawal, Nakos said NC State will focus on convincing Gainey to take the job. Gainey, who played four seasons for the Wolfpack in the late 1990s, has never been a head coach. Corrigan met with Gainey before Tennessee’s<\/a> campaign ended with a loss to Michigan<\/a> in the Elite Eight.<\/p>\n

Gainey has a ton of college experience, starting with a return to NC State after retiring from professional basketball. After two years as the Wolfpack’s administrative coordinator (2006-08) on head coach Sidney Lowe’<\/a>s staff, he was then promoted to director of operations (2008-09). He got his start as a college assistant coach with Elon in 2009-10.<\/p>\n

Gainey has also been an assistant at Appalachian State (2010-2014), Santa Clara (2017-18), and Arizona (2018-20). He had two stints at Marquette<\/a> under head coach Steve Wojciechowski,<\/a> first as his director of operations (2014-17) and then as associate head coach (2020-21).<\/p>\n

Gainey moved to Tennessee and served as an assistant coach during the 2021-22 season under Rick Barnes<\/a>. He has been Barnes’ right-hand man, i.e., the associate head coach, since 2022.<\/p>\n

“Since the jump of this search, On3 has\u00a0<\/span>reported\u00a0<\/span>that Gainey\u2019s name was at the top of the list for NC State,” Nakos said. “He\u2019s a proven high-major assistant and is a former player and staff member at NC State. He was a top name in the coaching search a year ago when they hired Will Wade<\/a>. Gainey knows what expectations are at NC State and what the fanbase wants. There would be no pause to think about accepting an offer. At this point, it appears Gainey is the target for NC State.”<\/p>\n

Early Look At NC State Basketball in 2026-27?<\/h3>\n

Whoever gets the Wolfpack job, and it certainly sounds like it will be Gainey, he will have to rebuild the roster completely. The Wolfpack won’t have five seniors, including four starters, from this past season’s squad that returned to the NCAA Tournament after a one-year hiatus. The Wolfpack went 20-14 and finished seventh in the ACC at 10-8.<\/p>\n

However, Alyn Breed<\/a> may return if he is granted an extra year of eligibility, Lou Pascucci of Pack Insider said.<\/a> Sophomore Paul McNeil Jr.<\/a> was one of the best shooters this past season and should be a priority for the program. Freshman Matt Able<\/a> — a consensus top-20 recruit in 2025 — Zymychal Wilkins<\/a>, Colt Langdon<\/a>, and Jerry Deng<\/a> are among others who could return.<\/p>\n

NC State has signed two four-star prospects as part of their 2026 recruiting class with 6-11 center Trevon Carter-Givens<\/a> and 6-7 wing Cole Cloer<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The North Carolina State Wolfpack appears to be closing in on its next head coach after Will Wade unexpectedly went back to the LSU Tigers. According to On3’s Pete Nakos, NC State athletic director Boo Corrigan made his rounds on Saturday to talk to a few of his top candidates.\u00a0 Corrigan reportedly met with St. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3146,"featured_media":184635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773,2,3],"tags":[3120,1434,2422,1763,1295],"class_list":["post-184555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","category-featured","category-news","tag-acc-basketball","tag-lsu-tigers","tag-north-carolina-state-wolfpack","tag-tennessee-volunteers","tag-will-wade"],"modified_by":"Daniel Benjamin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184555"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184640,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184555\/revisions\/184640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}