Darian DeVries faces a tall task in helping put Indiana back on the national basketball map for good

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New Indiana Hoosiers coach Darian DeVries hit all the right notes Wednesday.

He wants a roster that reflects today’s changing game yet still plays a selfless, hard-nosed style. He intends to go heavily into the transfer portal this year but recruit multiyear players in coming years. And, of course, he plans to win now — and for years to come.

It’s exactly the kind of promises Hoosiers fans have been hearing for nearly a quarter-century but that have gone mostly unfulfilled. At his introductory news conference, DeVries promised this time would be different, even at a school where lofty expectations have been the norm for decades.

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“I hope everybody, every fan base wants to win. I want to win. We all want to win,” he said. “The passion 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 or our players do or our staff does or our fans do. So from my standpoint, let’s do that together. Let’s go make this thing happen and let’s take this thing to as high a level as we can.”

No, the 49-year-old DeVries wasn’t quite as blunt as Hoosiers football coach Curt Cignetti, who started his tenure in December 2023 by challenging anyone who doubted he could win at Indiana to Google him.

Make no mistake, though, DeVries’ message was the same.

He spent six seasons as Drake’s head coach, leading the Bulldogs to more 20-win seasons in DeVries’ tenure than the program had in its entire history, two regular-season Missouri Valley Conference titles and back-to-back league tournament championships before taking the West Virginia job.

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It took him one season to make the Mountaineers relevant again, going from 9-23 with a last-place Big 12 finish in 2023-24 to a 19-13 mark and the cusp of an NCAA Tournament bid this season — a bid many thought was deserved.

Then, exactly a year after landing at West Virginia, DeVries returned to his Midwestern roots, explaining he…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/darian-devries-faces-tall-task-194827452.html

Author : MICHAEL MAROT

Publish date : 2025-03-19 19:48:00

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