Coach has meaningful chance, wants Indiana basketball to play Kentucky ‘forever’

BLOOMINGTON — For the first time in 14 years, Thursday, when an Indiana basketball coach faced his first question about the Kentucky series, he didn’t have to deflect.

Darian DeVries is the first man in IU’s head job since Tom Crean to inherit a series with Kentucky, after the longtime intrastate rivalry was put back on the schedule by Mike Woodson and John Calipari, two old friends who will now never coach in the rivalry they helped reignite.

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Asked during a pregame news conference Thursday for his intentions regarding Indiana’s annual meeting with the Wildcats — which hasn’t been played in the regular season since 2011 — DeVries strenuously endorsed its return to the schedule.

“I think it’s a great series,” he said. “I hope we can continue this forever. This is the first year of a four-game stretch. I think it’s great for both programs. I think it’s great for college basketball.”

Words that will win him a fair few friends in southern Indiana. It’s been a while since IU-Kentucky didn’t feel overly political.

Imagine, then, what victory Saturday night in Lexington would do. For DeVries, this is the kind of opportunity too few of his predecessors seized, one he should not pass up.

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DeVries and the Hoosiers travel to Rupp Arena for a primetime showdown with a team trying to pull itself out of a dive. Kentucky has lost every high-major game it’s played so far this season, only once in four tries having allowed fewer than 83 points.

The Wildcats’ most recent meaningful matchup came in a de facto home atmosphere in Nashville against Gonzaga, that atmosphere turning toxic as Kentucky scored just 20 first-half points and lost by 35.

“The games they’ve played well, they’ve scored easily,” DeVries said. “The games they’ve struggled, they just haven’t shot it.”

The calls for Mark Pope’s job that followed are plainly premature. And there’s every chance, in time, he turns Kentucky back into a tournament team and an…

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Publish date : 2025-12-13 09:50:00

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