First year WVU head coach Darian DeVries, recently went on Jon Rothstein’s College Hoops Today podcast and answered some questions about the transition from the mid-major level to the power five gauntlet.
During his time as the head coach at Drake, DeVries made the NCAA tournament at the mid-major level as a conference champion but has also put good enough seasons together there to grab a bid without the conference crown.
During the podcast, DeVries answered Rothstein’s question on the difficulty of needing to be ‘perfect’ in March to win the conference and get a bid into the big dance and whether or not DeVries was looking forward to being in a multiple-bid conference.
“The challenge is when you’re at the mid-major level, you know if you are going to get an at-large bid you have to be perfect throughout the year. You can’t have one of those bad nights. But the reality is when you play 31 games, you are going to have some bad nights.”
DeVries made mention of not having to be perfect every night as a good thing in the new conference but that bad thing is the competition and teams in the league get a whole lot better.
“I know we are really excited. We understand how great the league is. We understand how great the fan bases are in this league and how tough it is to play on the road. And we also understand what a great situation we have here and the home court advantage we have with our fans and our crowd’s passion that surrounds this program.”
DeVries later added,
“And I’m excited about the team we have. I can’t wait as we continue to grow and get ourselves ready to compete against the best of the best on a nightly basis and I know our guys are looking forward to that challenge as well.”
It will be quite the challenge for the new Mountaineer head coach to take the disaster of last season and make the NCAA tournament in the following year, but Devries got right to the jump bringing in a transfer class that fits his system’s needs.
The Big 12 is no mid-major conference. In fact, it may be the most grueling and demanding conference in college basketball. The fall is quickly approaching to see what DeVries has up his sleeve at the highest of basketball levels.
