Hired during the past offseason to be an assistant coach under the new Darian DeVries era of WVU hoops, Kory Barnett brings in a lot of coaching experience with some winning programs.
Having played his college career at Indiana, Barnett then spent five seasons coaching at Nevada and the last six seasons at UCLA, all under head coach Steve Alford.
When Barnett took time to speak to the media for the first time leading up to the start of the 2024-25 season, he was asked about his new head coach Darian DeVries and what makes him different from other coaches he has been around.
“I would say he’s incredibly detailed. He does a really good job of focusing on what winning looks like having been around that a lot. I don’t think he’s ever witnessed a losing season in his coaching career so he’s been around winning.”
This will be the first season for DeVries at WVU coming off six seasons as the head coach of Drake. In those six seasons, DeVries’s worst season was a 20-14 record in his second year. He followed that season up with a 26-5 record which saw Drake ranked in the top-25 and receive an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.
According to Barnett, that success comes from DeVries’s ability to focus on the little things at each and every practice of the season.
“He focuses in on what helps guys win, what those details are offensively and defensively and he hits on it every single day. He is a stickler for not only the details but guys’ passion. I think that’s the one thing I’ve learned the most from him in my six to seven months being here. He is incredibly focused on the passion and energy out guys bring every single day.”
During his six seasons at Drake, DeVries won two Missouri Valley Conference titles and made three NCAA Tournaments. He finished his time there with an all-time record of 150-55.
While it does not seem like that much success can bring much adversity to a team, Barnett says adversity is an unavoidable part of the game and happens every day at practice from little team runs, to missing shots.
“Who are you when adversity hits? Everyone is fine when it’s 70 and sunny, right? Everyone can coach that, but adversity is going to come and who are you when that adversity comes and it hits?”
What makes DeVries a great coach, Barnett states, is his ability to coach teams to face adversity head on instead of being one to point fingers and run from it.
“He does a really good job of every single day making sure the guys are focusing on the right thing, we, team, us, and that’s what he talks about consistently.”
It will be an interesting first season for DeVries and company as WVU has completely flipped the staff and roster after one of the worst seasons in the history of Mountaineer basketball. The team’s first game of the season will be against Robert Morris on Monday, Nov. 4 at 7:00 p.m. ET. The game can be streamed on ESPN+.
