WVU Basketball
Darian DeVries Says WVU Staff is Looking at ‘Multiple Players’ to Add
WVU HC Darian DeVries is preparing for his first season with the Mountaineers. DeVries and his new staff recruited 10 new scholarship players to the roster while returning sophomore forward Ofri Naveh.
With two scholarship spots available, DeVries told the media on Tuesday that his staff is still looking to add players.
“We’re still very much actively recruiting,” DeVries said. “There’s some multiple players that we’re still trying to recruit and get them here by the start of school.”
West Virginia has a couple of routes they can go with filling out the roster with a player or two: the transfer portal or international prospects. Last summer, Josh Eilert and his staff needed to retool the roster after a few transfer departures. WVU added Quinn Slazinski, Akok Akok, Jeremiah Bembry and Noah Farrakhan through the portal and Naveh came over from Israel.
Currently, there are over 500 players available in the transfer portal, according to The Portal Report. This offseason, the center position was hard to come by for programs looking for a big man. There were top centers available but not much depth after that. WVU landed Fresno State big Eduardo Andre but the team knows they lack in size.
Around this time of the year, if a staff doesn’t see anyone in the transfer portal that is eye-opening, then they’ll look at international recruits. Basketball as a sport is still growing rapidly around the globe. Countries are improving at the game, just look at the Olympics and Team USA failing to dominate the competition like in the past.
The NBA has more international stars than ever with Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and many more. College basketball could even see an increase with international players. It’s a part of the game where staffs will have to adapt.
WVU’s team heads to Italy from July 31-Aug. 10 for their foreign trip, highlighted by three games. For DeVries, his timeline is to add those players when classes start.
West Virginia opened up practice for the media on Tuesday. Click down below to see the new-look team.
