West Virginia’s basketball week gets worse with HC departure
This has not been a good week for West Virginia basketball. It started with the team being snubbed for the NCAA Tournament in a highly controversial decision by the selection committee that put North Carolina in ahead of the Mountaineers.
It continued on Tuesday with the news that head coach Darian DeVries is leaving the program after just one season.
Devries was hired by Indiana to take over its men’s basketball program.
Not only is West Virginia losing its coach, it could also directly lead to the program losing one of its top players, Tucker DeVries, who also happens to be the son of its now former head coach.
DeVries played three seasons at Drake, where his dad coached prior to West Virginia, and then followed him to Morgantown for the 2024-25 season.
It is entirely possible — if not likely — that he will follow his dad again.
He played in just eight games this season before having his season end due to an injury. He averaged 14.9 points per game and has been an outstanding scorer his entire collegiate career.
Whether Tucker DeVries transfers or not, having to get back into the head-coaching cycle is just another gut-punch this week for a program that is not catching a break anywhere. Especially when things seemed to be going in the right direction after some really tough years.
DeVries did an outstanding job in rapidly rebuilding West Virginia’s program in just one year, taking it from nine wins in 2023-24 to 19 wins this season, including six Quad 1 wins and three wins over AP top-10 teams.
Prior to his time at West Virginia he led Drake to three NCAA tournament appearances in his last four years running that program, and probably should have been there this season in his only year with the Mountaineers.
He is now taking over a once-proud Indiana program that has qualified for the NCAA tournament in just two of the past nine seasons.
All of this means next season West Virginia will have its fourth different head coach in four seasons.
Bob Huggins coached the 2022-23 season but resigned after a series of controversies that included him making homophobic comments and anti-Catholic sentiments on a radio show, which was then followed by a DUI incident a few weeks later.
That led to Josh Eilert taking over for the 2023-24 season, resulting in a nine-win season.
That was followed by DeVries for this season.
