3 Takeaways from Darian DeVries’ introductory press conference at Indiana

Darian DeVries was officially introduced as the 31st head coach in the history of the Indiana men’s basketball program at a press conference held Wednesday morning in the press room of Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Here he was able to lay out his vision for the program, why he took the job and answer a few questions from the gathered media.

Here are three takeaways from his introductory presser:

Offensive style of play

DeVries was asked about his offensive philosophy with specific emphasis on 3-point shooting. The past two iterations of the program under Mike Woodson and Archie Miller have rather notoriously had issues taking and converting on shots from deep.

In his answer, DeVries explained that he’d like to have shooting depth moving forward at Indiana and that getting players who can make those kinds of shots to Bloomington will be a priority.

He also emphasized that he likes to play with pace, ideally scoring in the first 12 seconds after a turnover or rebound, taking advantage of a broken defense on the other end of the floor.

“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,” DeVries said. “Then if you don’t score in those first 12 seconds, now we want to get the best shot available, whenever that may come.”

It’s probably music to the fanbase’s ears. Indiana has been starving for a solid shooting team since Tom Crean was on the sidelines in Bloomington. It looks like DeVries shares that priority and has a passion for transition basketball, which has a strong presence in the program’s history and around the state of Indiana.

Recruiting balance

Asked about weighing recruiting between the high school ranks and the transfer portal, DeVries said that he updated transfer portal rules have changed the overall landscape with recruiting and program building.

He emphasized that high school recruiting will remain his priority with development through the years within the program, looking to sign two or three freshman just about every year while keeping the previous year’s class intact.

“The last thing you want to do is every year come in and have to sign 10, 11 new guys,” DeVries said. “That’s just hard to make it function. The first year you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to get a roster put together, and then we build from there. Hopefully that retention is as close to 100 percent as we can because, like we said, they just love it here, they enjoy it, we’ve got the resources for them to stay here. Now you can build consistency, and that’s ultimately what you want to get to.”

Non-conference scheduling

DeVries was asked about his approach to non-conference scheduling and said that he keeps in mind that Indiana will have to play 20 Big Ten games, but that he’ll want to challenge his teams ahead of that slate.

He noted Indiana has Kentucky and Marquette on the schedule for his first season in 2025-26 and that he’d like to add onto that with more high-quality opponents.

“You have to do a good job of — 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,” DeVries said.

With Indiana being such a strong brand, it won’t be hard for the program to find MTEs or other strong high-major programs to compete against. It looks like DeVries would welcome and seek out that kind of challenge.