West
Virginia has set its sights on
Drake coach Darian DeVries to take over as its next men’s
basketball coach,
ESPN reported Sunday night. DeVries has led Drake to three NCAA Tournament appearances across the past four years and guided the program to 25 or more wins in each of the past four seasons, which made him one of the more coveted mid-major coaches. His contract with West Virginia will reportedly last five years. The soon-to-be former Drake coach takes over a West Virginia program that made headlines due to the DUI arrest of former head coach Bob Huggins in June. Assistant coach Josh Eilert ran things this season before the school started to look for a full-time replacement for the men’s basketball team. The program is coming off a rough year where it went 9-23 during the 2023-24 season and 4-14 in conference play, finishing at the bottom of the Big 12. DeVries brings plenty of coaching experience with him from Drake and was an assistant coach at Creighton for 17 seasons. In his first season at Drake in 2018-19, DeVries led his squad to a Missouri Valley regular-season title. They won a game in the First Four in the 2021 NCAA Tournament and fell in the first round of the tournament in 2023 to Miami. This year, Drake was knocked out by
Washington State. One big question now is whether DeVries’ son, Tucker DeVries, will follow his dad to West Virginia. Tucker will enter next season as one of the country’s top players, and he has collected 1,867 points across his career — while averaging 21.6 points per game this year for Drake.