Poised To Deliver – DeVries Aims to Build With ‘Right Stuff’
3/26/2025 9:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Pete DiPrimio
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Coaching is not quantum physics. Darian DeVries gets that, works to that. The Keep-It-Simple-Stupid cliché has its place as Indiana's new head coach seeks to build something special.
Make no mistake. DeVries aims to deliver something very special at Indiana.
"As coaches, we don't want to make it too difficult," he says. "Simplify it. Make it what it is. We've got to be good at these certain things. You've got to have a certain level of talent, but then the teams that can do defensive rebounding, take care of the ball, play together, play unselfish, the teams that can do that the best typically are the teams that have the most success.
"That will be our focus when we put a roster together. Make sure those things are all priorities."
A week into the job and DeVries is putting together a staff as well as a team. He brings a new approach but faces the same challenge every coach in America does – win early, win big.
He seems poised to deliver.
In seven seasons as a college head coach at Drake and West Virginia DeVries' teams have won 169 games, an average of 24.1 victories a season. For perspective, the last time IU won that many games was in 2016, when it went 27-8 and won its last Big Ten title.
DeVries understands that teams win with good players, disciplined players who buy into your system and their teammates. You win with high character and resolve so that when adversity comes, and it will, you rise above it.
"You certainly want to have as much talent as you can," DeVries says, "but that talent has to be able to play together. When we put that roster together, that's going to be our focus. How will this group function together when we put them out there on game night?"
IU has a lot to offer, from outstanding resources and facilities to a large passionate fan base and a rich tradition (five national championships). Add DeVries' vision and you have a promising foundation.
"Anytime you're at a new place," he says, "you can only use your past experiences and your coaching record. The biggest thing is here is you as a player, here's how we play; here's how we envision you."
Honesty, DeVries adds, is paramount.
"You tell them, this is where we see you. We don't make promises that we can't keep. Everybody comes in basically on the same note of I'm going to come because I want to work hard, I believe this coaching staff can get me better, they can challenge me, they can motivate me, and I'm going to love that process. I'm going to love being where I'm at.
"That's critical as you put a roster together and build your team."
The transfer portal, which opened on Monday, dominates modern recruiting. A process that once took years while building relationships with high school players is often condensed into weeks – or less – with college players. DeVries thrived at it at Drake and West Virginia.
"That's where your staff is critical," DeVries says. "You have your staff put together their relationships with people and maybe you recruited them on the front end and they went somewhere else and now you're getting an opportunity. As many of those opportunities that you can where you have relationships, you're going to do background checks.
"You used to have maybe two, three, four years to build up that type of background check. Now, a lot of times, you get two or three weeks.
"It's very critical. We put a lot of time and effort into talking to people who know the kid the best and then read body language, read teammates, all those things are important."
Chemistry is just as important as talent, perhaps more so, DeVries adds. In a locker room of 13 to 15 players, it takes just one or two bad fits to cause season-ruining problems.
"We want to do the best job we can on the front end to make sure they're all about the right stuff," he says. "They want to come here; they want to be a part of a winner; they want to be self-motivated to accept the challenges to become the best they can be and then play to win. That's ultimately what you've got to do. You can get good success from that."
DeVries still wants to have a big presence on high school recruiting, especially given the rich talent pool in the state of Indiana. Having players in your program for three or four or even five years builds continuity and culture that is difficult to sustain with constant roster turnover.
"Everything has changed from five to 10 years ago in terms of high school recruiting, the portal and things," DeVries says. "In our ideal world, we would build it from the high school up.
"This first year, that's not possible. We're going to have to fill some holes in the roster through the portal, and then your hope is in each year, you might lose just a guy or two."
Ideally, he adds, you have roster continuity and not uncertainty.
"Your hope is players love it here so much that nobody wants to leave. Then, you replace a few guys from the portal, continue to build through the high school. Over the course of time, you're able to build consistency within your roster.
"The last thing you want to do is every year come in and have to sign 10 to 11 new guys. That's hard to make it function. This first year we've got to do what we've got to do to get a roster put together, and then we build from there."
Beyond recruiting, success requires good non-conference scheduling to ensure good preparation for the Big Ten season, as well as possible NCAA tourney opponents. It also can be the deciding factor in receiving an at-large bid.
"We've got 20 Big Ten games to get ready for," he says. "We want to challenge ourselves in the best way possible to make sure we've got some very meaningful non-conference games."
The Hoosiers are well on their way with marquee games against Kentucky and Marquette next season. DeVries will have a bigger scheduling impact moving forward.
"We'll continue to work on building on that. We'd love to get another one or two really good high-quality games and then add that to the 20-game Big Ten schedule.
"You've got to get your home games, as well, but also make sure we do a great job of getting ourselves ready for Big Ten play and challenging ourselves before we start that."
In terms of maximizing on-court success, strong 3-point shooting is crucial in 21st Century college basketball. IU has struggled with that, as well as free throw shooting, in recent years. DeVries-coached teams have thrived in both areas.
His offensive approach is to score within the first 12 seconds of an offensive possession.
"We feel like the best way to score is on a broken floor before the defense is set, so that's our main priority from an offensive standpoint," he says. "If we don't score in those first 12 seconds, now we want to get the best shot available, whenever that may come."
DeVries says in building next year's roster, "We want plenty of depth in the shooting areas because you can't win if you don't make shots. That's a huge priority for us."
The bottom-line goal is to have the consistent elite success expected from a college superpower, one that delivers Big Ten and national championships. DeVries embraces that for himself, his program and all of Hoosier Nation.
"Every fan base wants to win," he says. "I want to win. We all want to win. The passion here is awesome. You want passion in a fan base. You want that. You thrive off that. Our players thrive off that. Nobody is going to want to win as bad as I do, our players do, our staff does, or our fans do.
"From my standpoint, let's do that together. As a fan base, as a community, let's rally around one another to make (success) happen. Let's take this thing to as high a level as we can and try to put that on a consistent basis.
"I love the fact that we have a passionate fan base. I think it's awesome."
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Coaching is not quantum physics. Darian DeVries gets that, works to that. The Keep-It-Simple-Stupid cliché has its place as Indiana's new head coach seeks to build something special.
Make no mistake. DeVries aims to deliver something very special at Indiana.
"As coaches, we don't want to make it too difficult," he says. "Simplify it. Make it what it is. We've got to be good at these certain things. You've got to have a certain level of talent, but then the teams that can do defensive rebounding, take care of the ball, play together, play unselfish, the teams that can do that the best typically are the teams that have the most success.
"That will be our focus when we put a roster together. Make sure those things are all priorities."
A week into the job and DeVries is putting together a staff as well as a team. He brings a new approach but faces the same challenge every coach in America does – win early, win big.
He seems poised to deliver.
In seven seasons as a college head coach at Drake and West Virginia DeVries' teams have won 169 games, an average of 24.1 victories a season. For perspective, the last time IU won that many games was in 2016, when it went 27-8 and won its last Big Ten title.
DeVries understands that teams win with good players, disciplined players who buy into your system and their teammates. You win with high character and resolve so that when adversity comes, and it will, you rise above it.
"You certainly want to have as much talent as you can," DeVries says, "but that talent has to be able to play together. When we put that roster together, that's going to be our focus. How will this group function together when we put them out there on game night?"
IU has a lot to offer, from outstanding resources and facilities to a large passionate fan base and a rich tradition (five national championships). Add DeVries' vision and you have a promising foundation.
"Anytime you're at a new place," he says, "you can only use your past experiences and your coaching record. The biggest thing is here is you as a player, here's how we play; here's how we envision you."
Honesty, DeVries adds, is paramount.
"You tell them, this is where we see you. We don't make promises that we can't keep. Everybody comes in basically on the same note of I'm going to come because I want to work hard, I believe this coaching staff can get me better, they can challenge me, they can motivate me, and I'm going to love that process. I'm going to love being where I'm at.
"That's critical as you put a roster together and build your team."
The transfer portal, which opened on Monday, dominates modern recruiting. A process that once took years while building relationships with high school players is often condensed into weeks – or less – with college players. DeVries thrived at it at Drake and West Virginia.
"That's where your staff is critical," DeVries says. "You have your staff put together their relationships with people and maybe you recruited them on the front end and they went somewhere else and now you're getting an opportunity. As many of those opportunities that you can where you have relationships, you're going to do background checks.
"You used to have maybe two, three, four years to build up that type of background check. Now, a lot of times, you get two or three weeks.
"It's very critical. We put a lot of time and effort into talking to people who know the kid the best and then read body language, read teammates, all those things are important."
Chemistry is just as important as talent, perhaps more so, DeVries adds. In a locker room of 13 to 15 players, it takes just one or two bad fits to cause season-ruining problems.
"We want to do the best job we can on the front end to make sure they're all about the right stuff," he says. "They want to come here; they want to be a part of a winner; they want to be self-motivated to accept the challenges to become the best they can be and then play to win. That's ultimately what you've got to do. You can get good success from that."
DeVries still wants to have a big presence on high school recruiting, especially given the rich talent pool in the state of Indiana. Having players in your program for three or four or even five years builds continuity and culture that is difficult to sustain with constant roster turnover.
"Everything has changed from five to 10 years ago in terms of high school recruiting, the portal and things," DeVries says. "In our ideal world, we would build it from the high school up.
"This first year, that's not possible. We're going to have to fill some holes in the roster through the portal, and then your hope is in each year, you might lose just a guy or two."
Ideally, he adds, you have roster continuity and not uncertainty.
"Your hope is players love it here so much that nobody wants to leave. Then, you replace a few guys from the portal, continue to build through the high school. Over the course of time, you're able to build consistency within your roster.
"The last thing you want to do is every year come in and have to sign 10 to 11 new guys. That's hard to make it function. This first year we've got to do what we've got to do to get a roster put together, and then we build from there."
Beyond recruiting, success requires good non-conference scheduling to ensure good preparation for the Big Ten season, as well as possible NCAA tourney opponents. It also can be the deciding factor in receiving an at-large bid.
"We've got 20 Big Ten games to get ready for," he says. "We want to challenge ourselves in the best way possible to make sure we've got some very meaningful non-conference games."
The Hoosiers are well on their way with marquee games against Kentucky and Marquette next season. DeVries will have a bigger scheduling impact moving forward.
"We'll continue to work on building on that. We'd love to get another one or two really good high-quality games and then add that to the 20-game Big Ten schedule.
"You've got to get your home games, as well, but also make sure we do a great job of getting ourselves ready for Big Ten play and challenging ourselves before we start that."
In terms of maximizing on-court success, strong 3-point shooting is crucial in 21st Century college basketball. IU has struggled with that, as well as free throw shooting, in recent years. DeVries-coached teams have thrived in both areas.
His offensive approach is to score within the first 12 seconds of an offensive possession.
"We feel like the best way to score is on a broken floor before the defense is set, so that's our main priority from an offensive standpoint," he says. "If we don't score in those first 12 seconds, now we want to get the best shot available, whenever that may come."
DeVries says in building next year's roster, "We want plenty of depth in the shooting areas because you can't win if you don't make shots. That's a huge priority for us."
The bottom-line goal is to have the consistent elite success expected from a college superpower, one that delivers Big Ten and national championships. DeVries embraces that for himself, his program and all of Hoosier Nation.
"Every fan base wants to win," he says. "I want to win. We all want to win. The passion here is awesome. You want passion in a fan base. You want that. You thrive off that. Our players thrive off that. Nobody is going to want to win as bad as I do, our players do, our staff does, or our fans do.
"From my standpoint, let's do that together. As a fan base, as a community, let's rally around one another to make (success) happen. Let's take this thing to as high a level as we can and try to put that on a consistent basis.
"I love the fact that we have a passionate fan base. I think it's awesome."
FB: Under The Hood - Week 3 (Indiana State)
Thursday, September 11
FB: Elijah Sarratt Media Availability (9/9/25)
Tuesday, September 09
FB: Roman Hemby Media Availability (9/9/25)
Tuesday, September 09
FB: Under the Hood with Indiana Football - Week 2 (Kennesaw State)
Thursday, September 04