WVU Basketball

Darian DeVries Plans on ‘Combining’ High School, Transfer Recruiting in New Era

Published

1 month ago

March 29, 2024

Drake Athletics

West Virginia HC Darian DeVries talked about the new age of college basketball during his introductory press conference on Thursday. DeVries says he will embrace the new era with the transfer portal and NIL but still believes recruiting high school kids is still important to build a culture.

“From a portal and high school perspective, we will do a combination of both. The portal is incredibly important but we’re also not losing sight of building within,” DeVries said. “Find very talented high school players that want to be here, fit this and then retain them.”

DeVries was able to retain and retool during his time at Drake. DeVries and his staff retooled its roster with transfers when they first arrived in 2018. Through his next five years, DeVries received high school commitments while filling in missing pieces with transfers.

Now at West Virginia, DeVries will be in the same situation, needing to retool the roster through the transfer portal and then setting focus on high school recruiting to build a long-term culture. DeVries and his staff will have to retain and retool long-term while at WVU. For the 47-year-old, there’s one thing that matters the most to him regardless of which type of recruit it is.

“We want players that want to be at West Virginia. We want players that want to be here because they want to be what we have here: this fanbase, this community, this school. They want to be a part of our program and embrace that.”

DeVries now takes over a West Virginia program that is turning the page from the Bob Huggins era and beginning a new one. WVU AD Wren Baker told reporters that he will leave it up to DeVries to figure out what he wants to do with his coaching staff.

“We hope to have a staff in place as soon as possible so we can continue getting out on the road during an important recruiting period,” DeVries said.

West Virginia currently has one transfer commit in DeVries’ son, Tucker. The Mountaineers also have one 2024 signee in Carmelo Adkins, from Josh Eilert’s staff.