WVSports.com continues with our popular feature: The 3-2-1. We'll break down three things we learned that week, two questions we have and give one prediction.
Here is the next installment of the 3-2-1 looking at the West Virginia football program, the latest on basketball and what’s happening in recruiting.
3 things I learned:
1–A mixed week on the court. West Virginia saw an opportunity slip through their fingers on the road at TCU leading to a 65-60 loss to the Horned Frogs. But the Mountaineers did show some resiliency by coming home and getting a must-win game over Utah to put the program at 15 wins with eight regular season games left.
It was a total team effort and a nice bounce back from the program after they struggled mightily at times against the Horned Frogs on both ends of the floor.
West Virginia is now set for a remaining schedule that is going to have opportunities for this team to further bolster their resume heading into the stretch run of the season.
West Virginia has a home game against BYU on Tuesday before hitting the road to take on Baylor and the hosting Cincinnati. From there, West Virginia has a road trip to Texas Tech, a home game against TCU, and then two road games at BYU and Utah before closing the regular season at home against UCF.
That isn't going to be an easy slate by any means but there are certainly chances there for the Mountaineers to stack some wins and put themselves in a good spot in regards to the NCAA Tournament. That is still a ways off at this point, but as long as the Mountaineers can take care of business at home and find a way to try to win on or two on the road would cement their place in the dance.
But they've got to string together some good play on both ends of the floor in order to get to that point. Still, a strong job by Darian DeVries in his first year at this stage.
2–DeVries out for the year. West Virginia made it official, but has long appeared to be the case for quite some time that Tucker DeVries isn't returning this season. The senior will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery and start the process of applying for a medical redshirt and working toward a return for next season.
DeVries followed his father to West Virginia from Drake where he was named the two-time Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year. That included the 2023-24 campaign where he averaged 21.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 3.7 assists while shooting 44-percent from the field and 36-percent from three.
He played in just eight games with the Mountaineers and averaged 14.9 points and 4.9 rebounds per game prior to being sidelined indefinitely with what was described as an "upper-body injury." However, reporting from WVSports.com confirmed that the issue was his shoulder and that a return was considered unlikely at best.
It's the second consecutive season that DeVries will undergo shoulder surgery and this is expected to sideline him for roughly three months according to his father Darian. The elder DeVries confirmed that his son did everything he could to return to the floor and worked with multiple medical teams in doing so but it was determined by all parties involved that surgery was necessary to address the injury.
West Virginia isn't going to have to guess how they would handle DeVries out of the lineup because the program has already been doing it since December. But it does make it a reality that there won't be any reinforcements coming at least from DeVries.
There is some silver lining to this news though as DeVries is going to apply for a medical redshirt which will give him the ability to come back for the Mountaineers next season. That is significant when it comes to building the roster for next year clearly to be able to retain a player of that caliber to build around with six seniors departing.
West Virginia also will be without the services of Jayden Stone who also plans to take a redshirt this season after missing the majority of the year.
