Practice is designed to allow college coaches to create adversity for their teams.
West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries doesn’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of that in order to see where his team, comprised of almost entirely new faces, responds.
“I’m the referee every day so I give them plenty of bad calls. They look at me and I’m like ‘I didn’t see it,’” he said. “We try to put them in situations where it’s stacked against them a little bit to create some of that.”
While college coaches can get a feel for how their team is going to respond to those type of situations, they never truly know until the games begin. That makes the leadup to the season critical to try to simulate that aspect as much as possible because the hardest thing to do as a team is to learn how to win together.
Some nights that could be easily accomplished by hitting a lot of shots, but on nights where the ball simply isn’t going in how does a team find ways around that? Or in the instance of a tough whistle or if the Mountaineers are on the road dealing with a hostile environment?
“How do you find a way to win those games? We’re getting there and that’s a process as well,” DeVries said.
It’s a process that the head coach expects isn’t going to be settled by the time the season opens and instead, like most teams should continue to evolve throughout the course of the year.
“How do you fight through adversity and find a way from a mental toughness standpoint?” DeVries said.
The first-year West Virginia head coach believes that he’ll likely find out something new about his team in every practice and game, but you have to continue to take the steps necessary in order to be successful.
A key aspect of that is the overall approach on the roster to getting to that point and thus far that’s been a positive all-around up and down with the players.
That isn’t always the case as players start to carve out more defined roles, but the Mountaineers have benefitted from a competitive practice environment with opportunities still available.
“They’ve continued to come out every day, great attitude, put a smile on their face and compete pretty hard,” DeVries said.
And that’s even with their coach giving them his own brand of adversity on the floor.
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