West Virginia assistant Cavel Witter knows all too-well what Darian DeVries expects out of his players.
That’s because he has experienced it firsthand.
Witter was raised in Kansas City, Missouri but spent his college career at Creighton from 2007-2010 where he was first introduced to DeVries.
After graduation, Witter wasn’t ready to leave his playing days behind, so he elected to continue his basketball career over seasons in Europe where he played 10 years professionally.
During that time, he mainly played in both Portugal and Germany but when that chapter closed the one that led into coaching opened and he started his career at Lincoln University, a Division II School in Missouri.
It wasn’t a planned jump into the profession, but while visiting a friend who was on staff at the school he quickly hit it off with the head coach and was offered a position.
After weighing the pros and cons of leaving his playing days behind, Witter determined it was his best path.
“So that was that and after that I just stayed with it,” he said.
It was a quick route into coaching but one that’s seen him quickly rise up the ranks. Witter would move to Georgia Southern and then had the ability to reunite with DeVries and coach under him at Drake last season. Witter worked with DeVries a lot as a player with skill development and realized then that a bright future was there for him as a head coach when the time came.
“Just from the knowledge he knew, and you could tell he really enjoyed and invested time into his players,” Witter said. “He was one of those guys. He kept the locker room together really well. He was a big time truth-teller. He told you when you were doing good and told you when you were doing bad,” he said.
Now working under him as an assistant DeVries is still the same type of coach. And as a young assistant at the power four level, he is soaking up ways that he can better his craft.
Witter still has the ability to show his players how things are done in practice being only a few years removed from playing the game, and basketball remains one of his fondest loves.
“From a basketball standpoint, I'm really passionate about the sport still, and I was impacting lives, helping, you know, young men, you know, mature and grow a little bit,” he said.
He’s learned how to take that love for the game and translate it into teaching his players. That experience he has learned over the years has helped him craft his message into one players can connect to.
“I’m getting to learn on the fly as well,” he added.
When putting together the initial roster in Morgantown, it came as no surprise that the quality that DeVries put the most emphasis on is simply being competitive and having discipline.
“You know, all these things don't ultimately lead to winning every time, but it gives you a chance,” he said.
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