West Virginia finds fit in DeVries, now program the focus
West Virginia wanted the right fit for the open men’s basketball head coaching job and Athletic Director Wren Baker believes he found just that in Darian DeVries.
DeVries was announced Sunday night as the school’s 23rd coach ending a relatively short search that began in earnest March 13 when the school announced that Josh Eilert would not return after serving as the interim coach.
The process actually was set into motion long before that to allow Baker and his staff time to sort through a long list of profiles to find the right types of coaches he wanted for the post.
It was a data driven process with Baker placing an emphasis on certain qualities that he wanted for the eventual selection and sorted through the profiles of coaches across the college landscape. Once that process helped to identified a list of candidates things shifted to the next step.
From there, it was more traditional with meetings with candidates before DeVries surged to the forefront.
It’s quite the coup for the program when you consider the sustained success that DeVries had over his six years atop the Drake basketball program. He amassed a career record of 150-55 and has taken the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament in three of the last four years.
DeVries also has won at least 25 games in each of the last four seasons while bringing an exciting brand of offensive basketball with the defensive numbers Baker was searching for in a candidate. This past season Drake ranked No. 45 in offensive efficiency and averaged 80.5 points per game.
Over his time at Drake, DeVries has used more of a four-out system and this past season shot 36.7 percent from three as the group was very productive. It’s a formula that has worked and will be interesting to see the approach he takes once he arrives in Morgantown and competes in the Big 12.
The Iowa native only had one other job in his career as he spent 17 years serving under Dana Altman and Greg McDermott at Creighton before he got the opportunity to lead his own program.
That background is certainly intriguing considering the profiles of those two head coaches.
But now, DeVries will have the opportunity to lead his own Power Four program and will compete in the rugged Big 12 Conference with the intent to turn things around in Morgantown.
“I'm honored to lead this historic program which has an outstanding tradition and passionate fanbase,” DeVries said. “Gamedays in the WVU Coliseum are legendary, and the incredible support for Mountaineer Basketball is known nationwide. I look forward to building on the success of the program.”
DeVries inherited a Drake program that hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament in over a decade and left it as one of the best programs in the Missouri Valley Conference. That takes building a culture and finding the right players that fit into your schemes with the challenges of finding success in a smaller league.
That program and culture building is what the Mountaineers were searching for, and Baker has already admitted he is prepared to allow him to cultivate that in Morgantown.
“I always encourage coaches to build a program and not a team. I think when you’re on board with a new coach it’s important they get the culture right, the staff right, the systems right and you have to have patience to allow them to grow into it,” Baker said.
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