West Virginia men’s basketball officially welcomed Darian DeVries to be the school’s 23rd head coach on Thursday at the WVU Coliseum.
DeVries comes from Drake, and what stood out was his culture, the fit for him at WVU as well as his style of play as he embarks upon this new journey.
“I understand the responsibility of being the men’s basketball coach here at West Virginia and we will do everything we can to make you proud,” DeVries said. “We’re going to do it with intergrity, we’re going to do it the right way, we’re going to work hard. Everything that makes you proud to represent us and vice versa, we will do that back to you.”
Culture
For DeVries, he wants to have talent in the room, but also wants to find guys that can be as successful and meaningful off the court as on it.
“From a player standpoint, we will continue to work hard this upcoming spring and summer as I get an opportunity to meet with the current players and then also as we go out and find prospective student-athletes for their future here at West Virginia,” DeVries said.
DeVries added that he wants to be able to recognize their personality off the court and have that side of their life mean as much as basketball.
“We will look for young men that have talent with intangible. I am a firm believer if you stack talent and intangibles and you do that enough times and you put together a group like that in the locker room, that equates to winning and we will have a locker room full of winners. Winners aren’t about necessarily scoring baskets.
“They have a discipline, a toughness, an unselfishness, that stands tall in all situations, and we will teach them to apply those to all phases of their life. When they leave here, we don’t want them to leave here just as good basketball players, we want them to leave here as great men.
Fit
DeVries comes from Drake, and is also originally from Iowa. DeVries said he understands the Big 12 and how good the league is.
“I think the biggest challenge as you change leagues in general is just learning the league. I grew up in the midwest with the Big 12, the old Big 8, so certainly I have a great understanding of the league, know many of the coaches in the league,” DeVries said. “At the end of the day, basketball is still basketball, things that matter for winning, matter for winning at every level. We’ll put together a team that we feel like can be successful in the areas we want them to be successful and they fit together. It’s not about just necessarily collecting talent, it’s about putting together a team and we’ll certainly work hard to do that.”
DeVries also mentioned how he wants to come to West Virginia because of the winning tradition they have. DeVries said he has communicated with multiple former head coaches and understand what West Virginia basketball is about.
“The success it speaks for itself,” DeVries said. “This is an unbelievable situation. There’s so many things here that are in place and [Wren Baker] is a big part of that too.”
Style
Devries has embraced analytics, but also knows what’s important in basketball. He prioritized running good offense, and on defense he stressed rebounding.
“The Big 12 is obviously a very defensive oriented league, it’s a very physical league. The Missouri Valley has had a lot of that as well, just a different level of physicality,” DeVries said. “There’s no question in order to be successful in the Big 12, you have to defend, you have to be able to rebound. You have to have some physicality to you. Your team has to have some toughness. We will recruit to that, we will coach to that, we will teach that.
“From a philosophy standpoint, how do you win games. you have to take care of the ball, you have to defensive rebound, you have to guard. Those three things, that’s winning. If you do those three areas well, you have a chance to win every single night.”
Drake had many analytical rating on KenPom among the top quarter of all teams in college basketball this season,
“Offensively, it starts with getting stops, but once we get the ball, when you reach out and when you talk to people in our league, the thing they fear the most is our transition game and that has to come off of getting defensive stops. That’s not something we talk about every day, it’s something we do every day. If you come watch us practice, we’re going to practice transition. Our goal is to score within the first 12 seconds of every possession because if you can score against a broken defense, it gives your opportunity to score a lot better chance.”
Overall, DeVries wanted West Virginia and West Virginia wanted DeVries. Now, the real work starts as DeVries gets to work.
“Our goal is to make sure every opponent leaves here with some pepperoni rolls and the words of Country Roads echoing in their heads,” DeVries said.
