MORGANTOWN — Granted, these preseason interviews came in July rather than late September, as the WVU men’s basketball team prepared for their international journey to play some exhibition games in Italy later this week.
There is a ton that’s new, beginning first with the head coach and the assistants, and also stressing the roster is basically a complete overhaul, but one thing remains eerily similar.
And it’s the one thing that will define head coach Darian DeVries’ early standing with the program.
What are we talking about? Let’s go to some quotes.
WVU point guard Javon Small: “Everybody who has come in, I think everyone has the right mindset. Everybody just wants to win. Everybody has a pretty-high IQ and we have multiple playmakers.
“We have two freshmen, but for the most part, everybody else has at least one year of college basketball under their belts or are just older.”
WVU forward Tucker DeVries: “I’m excited to go prove as a group what we’re about and go try and win as many games as possible. The group we have is very motivated to do so.
“We have a lot of seniors. We’ve got one year left, and everybody has kind of found a new start, a new beginning and we all get to do it together.”
It all sounds good, and to be sure, that’s what those guys are probably supposed to think and say before the season even begins.
The issue isn’t with what those two players said. The issue is with their theory that having a bunch of older players means they have some sort of edge.
Truth is, we’ve heard these thoughts before.
You could go back two years and basically find the same quotes from Erik Stevenson or Emmitt Matthews Jr. Go back to last year and Quinn Slazinski was basically saying the same thing.
Each team the last two years brought in a ton of new guys, most of them older.
They had never played together before, but had played a ton of college basketball elsewhere. That was supposed to make for an easy transition.
It didn’t.
Two years ago, that WVU team did slip into the NCAA tournament, but did so as the eighth-place team (out of 10 back then) in the Big 12. A year ago, well, the Mountaineers had just four wins in conference play and finished tied for last.
To be sure, it’s been done elsewhere. Kansas State’s Jerome Tang did a masterful job two years ago managing the transfer portal, taking the Wildcats to the 2023 Elite Eight in his first season.
Baylor’s Scott Drew searches far and wide for different pieces in the portal and finds ways to make them fit quickly.
While at Arkansas, Eric Musselman was impressive with seemingly always signing a lot of transfers and making it work.
It can be done. It just hasn’t worked so far at WVU.
Which brings us to Darian DeVries, who will now be the third coach in as many years to take this approach at WVU.
Now, we’re not making any predictions just yet how this season will play out. Let’s at least see how this bunch looks in Italy, with the first exhibition game starting at 12:30 p.m. Saturday in Genoa.
Maybe DeVries’ system and player-development style lends itself to being more adept to easier transitions for new rosters.
It’s possible. As his son Tucker pointed out, Drake had 10 new players on its roster last season, and the Bulldogs still won the Missouri Valley Conference and went to the NCAA tournament.
If DeVries is able to come anywhere close to those results in his first season at WVU, then all bets are off.
That would immediately separate him from the old guard, so to speak, and propel DeVries into a new and comfortable era in the eyes of the fans and supporters.
Until that actually happens, though, it becomes a question of insanity, as in continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results that never seem to come.
“The biggest thing when you have a whole new group of guys, it takes some time to figure things out,” DeVries said. “As coaches, you’re trying to figure out how to best utilize each guy’s individual strengths and put them in the best position. The players are trying to figure out what you want from them.
“I felt like over the last six, seven weeks we’ve made some strides. The biggest thing as a group is you have to learn how to win. That’s the part that probably takes the longest time.”
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