MORGANTOWN — After seven months, a trip to Italy and two preseason encounters, Darian DeVries is about to coach his first game at WVU that will finally count.
“I don’t feel pressure, but every game, I want a little nerves, I want to be excited,” DeVries said. “That’s why we do this. I’m certainly excited for our staff and our team to go out there and play for real. From a coaching standpoint, the only thing I really care about is we go play the way we want to play.”
A curtain, of sorts, will go up at 7 p.m. Monday inside the WVU Coliseum, as the Mountaineers host Robert Morris for the season opener.
Act 1 is simply an unveiling, as in finding out who these Mountaineers are.
It is basically a new roster DeVries put together, a clean slate from the program that finished last in the Big 12 last season and set a school record with 23 losses.
It is now a team, from most projections, that will look to open the floor with a lot of 3-point shots, while playing a tough brand of defense on the other end.
Projections, though, can change. Truth is, maybe no one outside of DeVries and his players know what to expect.
“A lot of people think they know who we are, we’re a new team, a fresh team,” WVU guard Sencire Harris said. “We come in as the underdogs. People may think that, but they really don’t know us.”
The same can be said, too, of the Colonials, who hung in with Villanova last week in a charity exhibition game, losing 87-73.
Under longtime coach Andrew Toole, the Colonials are breaking in a different team with just one starter and three of its top eight players back from last season’s 10-22 team.
D.J. Smith and Josh Omojafo both scored 15 points for Robert Morris in the loss. Smith is a transfer from Bowling Green, while Omojafo was a Division II All-American last season at Gannon (Pa.).
The bigger question will what will the Mountaineers offer?
“I think we’ve got a lot of guys who can make shots,” DeVries said. “They’re very capable 3-point shooters. We’ll see when the game lights are on what that looks like. I do think we’ve got guys who can have a night, which is always good to have several guys who can go get you 20 on any given night.”
That includes his son, Tucker, a senior who will make his WVU debut after winning back-to-back player of the year honors in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Harris and forward Amani Hansberry were once highly-touted recruits who transferred to WVU from Illinois, following assistant coach Chester Frazier, now the associate head coach at WVU.
Toby Okani led the Missouri Valley in blocks last season at Illinois-Chicago, while Javon Small will be the one in charge of keeping it all together at point guard.
Small is a transfer from Oklahoma State, who averaged 15.1 points and 4.1 assists per game last season.
“I think the identity has begun to shine through a little bit,” Darian DeVries said. “If we can do it consistently, that will kind of be our main goal.
“They are playing really hard right now, and I love that. They are playing unselfishly and together. I’m excited to see, as we get into games, for us to do that for 40 minutes every single night.”
The fun part, DeVries said has been piecing it all together in those seven months, finding out the correct peg fits to fit into each hole.
“When you got a bunch of returners back, you kind of know what you have versus a group of news guys and you don’t know for sure on game night,” DeVries said. “That’ll change as the season goes. When we get into games, we may need to get Toby on the block more or we need to get Amani more threes.
“Each game you can add to what you’re doing and maybe tweak it a bit. That’s kind of the fun part of being able to adjust as the season goes.”
