One of the most prestigious programs in men’s college basketball has picked its new leader.
Indiana has hired West Virginia’s Darian DeVries as its next head coach, the university announced Tuesday.
In what would be his lone season with the Mountaineers, DeVries went 19-13 overall and 10-10 in the Big 12 despite a season-ending injury limiting his son — Tucker, the team’s No. 2 scorer and the two-time Missouri Valley Conference player of the year — to just eight games. West Virginia was widely projected to make the NCAA Tournament, but was shockingly the first team left out of the field.
Prior to West Virginia, DeVries was the head coach for six seasons at Drake, where he went 150-55 and guided the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament in three of his final four seasons.
‘We went into this coaching search with some very specific things we were looking for in our next head coach, and Darian emerged as someone who, on paper, met and often exceeded our criteria,” Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson said in a statement. ‘Once we had a chance to talk to him, we knew we had the right person. Darian has a plan for building a championship culture that can compete at the highest level on a year-in, year-out basis.”
Given how little he played this season, Tucker DeVries has the option of applying for a medical redshirt with the NCAA for another season of eligibility and could follow his father.
At Indiana, the elder DeVries will inherit a challenge that many have accepted, but few, if any, have lived up to in the 25 years since Bob Knight’s firing — once again making the Hoosiers a perennial national championship contender.
Indiana has made the NCAA Tournament just nine times in the past 22 seasons, including only twice in the past nine years. Since a surprise run to the national championship game under Mike Davis in 2002, the Hoosiers have never advanced past the Sweet 16 and have gotten beyond the tournament’s first weekend only three times.
DeVries will replace Mike Woodson, a former Indiana standout and NBA head coach who went 82-53 in three seasons at his alma mater, but missed out on the NCAA Tournament in each of his final two seasons despite having talented rosters.
Even with their relatively recent struggles, there’s reason to believe the Hoosiers can recapture their former glory.
The program has a lengthy and decorated history, with five national championships, tied with Duke for the fifth-most in Division I history, and eight Final Fours. It’s located in a talent-rich state in which basketball has an outsized social and cultural influence. Indiana has an enviable place in the financial behemoth that is the Big Ten and pumps significant resources into men’s basketball. The Hoosiers spent the seventh-most of any Division I program, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education.
‘This is unquestionably one of the top jobs in America,” DeVries said in a statement. “As someone who grew up in the Midwest loving the game of basketball, I’ve always admired the IU Basketball program for its championship-level success, tradition, and fan support. There’s a passion to succeed at the very highest levels both within the Big Ten and in the NCAA Tournament, and that’s a desire that as a coach I share. On top of that, the alignment is there on a department and university level to make that happen. I’m excited for this opportunity and am ready to work relentlessly to assemble a staff and a roster that competes for championships.’
With DeVries on his way to Bloomington, West Virginia will now look to bring in its fourth men’s basketball coach in the past four years. Among the candidates who could be potential fits for the Mountaineers are Utah State coach Jerrod Calhoun — a former West Virginia assistant under Bob Huggins — Drake coach Ben McCollum and McNeese coach Will Wade.
