Newly Hired Coach Texted WVU AD Wren Baker About DeVries Hire

WVU director of athletics Wren Baker spoke with the media on Thursday, recapping the coaching search. Baker mentioned that new Michigan HC Dusty May shot him a text when West Virginia hired Drake’s Darian DeVries.

“He shot me a text when we hired coach DeVries that said you guys got yourself a ball coach and ‘ball’ was in all caps,” Baker said.

May, who was the mid-major darling at Florida Atlantic, was at the top list of coaching searches for the best jobs available. While Baker didn’t go into detail about how far his conversations went with May, he had an idea where he’d end up, which helped West Virginia.

“I have a friendship with him. I knew a ballpark pecking order of where he was a couple of weeks ago, which allowed me to work through our process free and clear. I think there were several schools waiting on him because he was playing,” Baker said. “I wasn’t doing that because I kind of knew how he was on things.”

WVU AD Wren Baker told me his personal relationship with Dusty May helped him in his search because he knew where May was leaning weeks before everyone else. He wouldn’t go into why it wasn’t May for WVU, but did say May texted him “you got a BALL COACH” after announcing DeVries.

— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11) March 28, 2024

Baker talked about how it became easier for him to predict where coaches would end up in the coaching carousel. While Ohio State promoting Jake Diebler threw him off, May to Michigan surprised a lot of the college basketball world.

While there was a low chance WVU would hire May, Baker just let people continue to speculate.

“There’s a lot of speculation about him because people picked up on I know him,” he said. “I allowed that speculation to continue because it’s a good smoke screen. Let people keep speculating.”

May isn’t the only coach in the game that likes the hiring of DeVries. Creighton HC Greg McDermott and Oregon HC Dana Altman, two that share DeVries in their coaching trees, praised the hire. Basketball Hall of Fame coach Jay Wright also talked highly on DeVries during the NCAA Tournament coverage last weekend.

DeVries built a program of consistency during his six seasons at Drake. The Bulldogs have won 20-plus games in each of DeVries’ seasons at the helm, with three NCAA Tournament appearances. Drake has one NCAA Tournament win from the play-in game vs. Wichita State in 2021.

DeVries left Drake with a 150-55 (73.2%) record over six years.