MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Wren Baker has his man. Darian DeVries, who led Drake University to nearly half of its NCAA Tournament appearances in school history, was formally introduced as West Virginia University’s 23rd men’s basketball coach Thursday morning inside the WVU Coliseum.
DeVries, sporting a blue suit, white shirt and gold tie, was one of several outstanding up-and-coming coaches in line for available power conference jobs at West Virginia, Ohio State, Michigan, Washington, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Louisville and Oklahoma State.
The West Virginia position really came open last June when Baker appointed Josh Eilert as interim coach, meaning he had more time than others to target his guy.
“I think you are looking for a variety boxes that you’re trying to check, but I do think when you talk about the depth and the quality of the Big 12, there are some great, great coaches in this league,” Baker said.
“I’ve got great respect for the Missouri Valley Conference. It’s a great league, and you can go back in time and see the success this conference has had in the past, and I have a lot of respect for the job that coach did at Drake,” he added. “I know what that job was there before he took it over. It was not a very good job, and he’s turned it into a good job. In my mind, that’s what made him the best candidate, and we looked at a lot of different people and a lot of different profiles.”
Baker said the on-campus search committee consisted of outgoing executive deputy athletics director Steve Uryasz, who will be taking over as athletic director at Tarleton State next week, Natasha Oakes, deputy athletics director and senior woman administrator, Ben Murray, deputy athletics director and chief development officer, Michael Fragale, executive senior associate athletics director, and Bryan Messerly, associate athletics director for communications.
“I spent 20 years at Creighton University because that was the place that I loved, it was a place that my family loved, and I wasn’t going to leave Creighton University for just any job at the time,” DeVries said. “I wanted the right one to get my first job, and that was Drake University.
“I’m from the Midwest, and I said it was going to take something pretty special to leave there, and when I talked to Wren, and talked to people who know this program, this place and the people here, everything about it made sense to me and my family, that this was a place that we could see ourselves here for a very, very long time,” he said.
DeVries’ wife, Ashley, son, Tucker, and daughter, Tatum, were in attendance for today’s event. Tucker, a 6-foot-7, 210-pound guard and two-time MVC player of the year who averaged 21.6 points per game for Drake and is considered among the top players in this year’s transfer portal, will be playing his senior year for the Mountaineers, his father announced today.
