DeVries coached teams bring winning traits in key areas
West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries brings a lot on both ends of the floor from a coaching perspective.
On the offensive end, Drake runs an exciting brand of basketball that scored over 80.5 points per game last year and a key part of that formula comes down to shot-making. The Bulldogs have had a 51.4 effective field goal percentage or better in all six years of his time atop the program.
Drake has shot 51.3-percent or better from two every season and 34.9-percent from three in five of six seasons with the only outlier being 33.1-percent during the 2021-22 campaign.
And a big reason for the shot making comes from getting good shots. The offensive efficiency of the Bulldogs ranked in the 97th percentile this past season with that being the 98th percentile in half-court and 99th percentile against man defense.
“He gets the right guys open looks in the right spots,” said Jay Cipoletti of Hoopalytics.
Examining the offensive heat map, DeVries teams have a spike in two-point attempts in the paint and at the elbows which is a telling sign.
"Those are the highest-value mid-range shots which means he will take what the defense gives him instead of forcing it to the rim,” Cipoletti said.
DeVries teams play man-to-man defense on 99-percent of their possessions and are known for their defensive rebounding and ability to end possessions. In his six seasons atop the Bulldogs program, they’ve been a top 20 defensive rebounding team three times and have never allowed an offensive rebounding rate higher than 26-percent.
During that time, Drake has never finished worse than 81st nationally and the last two years has ranked fourth at 22.4-percent and second at 22.5-percent.
For comparison, under previous head coach Bob Huggins the best season in offensive rebounding percentage was 27.1 while in nine of his 16 seasons the Mountaineers allowed over 30-percent.
There’s a lot to like about what DeVries brings to the table as a coach on both ends and this is just a minor snapshot of what West Virginia fans can potentially expect.
The data for this story was provided by Synergy and CBB Analytics.
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan
