The numbers game does not favor the recent history of the WVU men’s basketball team, and therefore Darian DeVries’ present.
The Mountaineers have not had a 20-win season since 2020. There hasn’t been a 25-win season since 2018.
There have been two last-place finishes in the Big 12 over the last three seasons, and an eighth-place finish nestled in between those.
Those are the kinds of numbers that scream, “nowhere to go but up,” if you look at it a certain way, or they could have also told DeVries to look elsewhere.
In truth, DeVries admits he didn’t have to make the move to Morgantown at all last March, when he became the Mountaineers’ head coach.
Things were going just fine at Drake (Des Moines, Iowa), which is roughly just a 90-minute drive from his home in Aplington.
The Bulldogs were winning 25-plus games per year, top-25 rankings were becoming within reach and his contract had just been extended for eight years in 2021.
So why WVU? Why now? Those are some of the questions asked of DeVries in a sit-down interview with The Dominion Post.
The Dominion Post: You had six successful seasons at Drake, what was it about WVU that made it feel like this was the right time for you to make a move?
Darian DeVries: My whole thing was making sure if I ever decided to leave that I was happy and my family was happy. It needed to be the right fit.
If you take the wrong job, not only are you and your family not happy, but it’s like square peg, round hole type stuff. I didn’t want to make something try to fit, you’ll know when the right one is.
TDP: When you first went to Drake, there hadn’t been much success there, do you see similarities with that move to your move to WVU?
DD: When that opportunity came up at Drake, I thought it was a tremendous opportunity for myself and my family. A lot of other people didn’t understand at the time why I wanted it. I knew there were things in place, the people and the support around it could certainly be there if you can ever get it going, and it certainly played out that way.
There were other opportunities when I was at Drake, but they just didn’t make sense to me. West Virginia was one that I felt was a great fit. I liked everything there was around it and where it can potentially grow.
There is a great tradition here. I don’t think just because a program has a down year here or there it changes who they are.
TDP: Was there anyone who tried to tell you WVU maybe wasn’t the right fit?
DD: I think everyone has opinions. I think any time you take a job like this, it’s important to ask those people things.
Deep down, you have to know what’s best for you. As I gathered opinions and gathered information from people, everything from the town, to the community, to the basketball program to the school, you factor all of it.
But, deep down, what does your gut tell you? After you get all that information, that’s ultimately what you have to go with.
I didn’t feel like I had to do it all. I felt like it was the right fit at the right time. I could have stayed at Drake for as long as they would have me. I was enjoying it. I’m not one of those guys who are just chasing the next biggest thing. That stuff is not that important to me, to be honest.
TDP: After arriving here, you ended up with only sophomore Ofri Naveh left on the roster. Was there any disappointment on your part on the players who decided to transfer?
DD: I had conversations with the guys, ultimately I told them they didn’t choose to come here to play for me and vice versa.
I told them there would be no hard feelings if they wanted to explore other opportunities, and I had to make sure they were the right fit for us.
There was a follow-up with them. Some of them decided to hit the portal before that, which I was more than fine with. They had to find what was the best fit for them, and I would help them in any way I could.
That’s the way it ended up with Ofri staying, and we went from there.
TDP: Is Naveh a good fit for what you want to do here?
DD: I think Ofri really wanted to be here. By all accounts, he was a good teammate and someone who wanted to continue to get better. At the end of the day, that was a good reason for him to stay.
TDP: There are obviously a lot of feelings, one way or the other, about former coach Bob Huggins. How do you carve out your own place in the program?
DD: First of all, I have a lot of respect for the success coach Huggins had here and over his entire coaching career.
I can’t be coach Huggins. I wouldn’t even want to try to be coach. He’s his own man and did an unbelievable job.
All I can do is be me and coach and lead the program the best way I can. Hopefully that will be something that will continue to make the people here proud.
TDP: Your son, Tucker, had just had shoulder surgery when you were introduced back in March. How is he coming along?
DD: It’s coming along good, and he’s participating in all the non-contact stuff, so he can do all the five-against-zero stuff and the drills.
My hope is the middle of July to the end of July he’ll be fully cleared. We’ll see what that looks like. There’s no sense of trying to rush him now. We’ll wait and see where he’s at once we get back from the July Fourth break.
He could potentially play in Italy (in late July). Again, if it feels rushed, we won’t do it. We just want to make sure he’s back with his strength and conditioning. I think we’ll be in a good spot certainly by the beginning of the school year.
TDP: You’ve signed 11 new players to the roster, with a mix of incoming freshmen and transfers. How can you get all of them on the same page going into the season?
DD: We have a good mix of veterans and freshmen. If we added 13 freshmen, you’d approach the year thinking we’re going to go through some growing pains.
That’s not our intention. Our intention is to win and win now. That’s why these guys are here. This isn’t a rebuilding year. We’re coming in and this group has every intention of wanting to play in the NCAA tournament. That’s their goal.
It’s a long ways from that right now. I do like the mind set this group has right now. I want them to have that mind set. If they carry that out every single day, there’s no reason they can’t achieve that goal.
TDP: If you can get this team back into the NCAA tournament next season, with everything that’s happened recently with coaching changes and news guys coming, what kind of story would that be?
DD: I think it would be a great story. It would say a lot about the guys in the locker room and how they came together.
We’ll be real, there’s not a lot of expectations on this group. That’s OK. The only expectations we talk about that matter is the ones inside our locker room. Those are the expectations we’re going to try and live up to everyday. If we do that, I feel very confident the results will come with it.
TDP: So when that first preseason poll comes out and if WVU is picked near the bottom, that won’t become defeating in any way?
DD: I think my first year at Drake, there were 10 teams in the league and we might have been picked 11th. We ended up winning the league that year.
Especially with the portal now, nobody knows what you have or don’t have. Where we get picked, we get picked. That’s not going to impact how we approach who we are and what we think we can be in the slightest.
