A major offseason coaching domino has already fallen just before the beginning of the NCAA Tournament, as Indiana will hire Darian DeVries as their next head coach. Indiana’s opening came after Mike Woodson announced his retirement nearly a month ago before coaching the rest of the season.
DeVries is an Iowa native who played collegiately at Northern Iowa back in the late 90’s, with much of his experience coming in the Missouri Valley Conference. After that great work playing in the MVC, he was on staff in the league at Creighton for the next two decades. DeVries worked closely under Dana Altman and Greg McDermott and helped the program’s successful transition into the Big East.
Sources: Indiana is targeting West Virginia coach Darian DeVries to be the next coach, sources tell me and @jeffborzello. DeVries spent one year at WVU, where he went 19-13 and got snubbed from NCAA Tournament. He led Drake to three NCAA tournaments in four years. pic.twitter.com/76l9Iw5vAm
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 18, 2025
His own head coaching career would begin in 2018 when he bounced back to the MVC as the new head coach at Drake. The Bulldogs’ program was in decent shape but hadn’t been a winning program in recent memory, though DeVries quickly changed that. He won the MVC regular season title in his first season and led Drake on three trips to the NCAA Tournament.
Thanks to six 20-win seasons and a boatload of victories, DeVries was hired by West Virginia last offseason. He inherited a program that was coming off a messy season, with Bob Huggins being fired before the season began. The world saw the Mountaineers’ bubble burst this past weekend, but his team won 19 wins and were relatively competitive in the Big 12.
Now DeVries takes a much bigger job with higher expectations, landing on his feet again in Bloomington. Woodson took the Hoosiers to the NCAA Tournament twice in his four seasons but didn’t do enough for the gravity of this program. The brass hopes that DeVries can succeed where recent coaches have failed and elevate this program back into a Big Ten leader and national contender on a yearly basis.
We don’t know how things will work out for DeVries, who has never worked in the Big Ten and has no connection to the school or the state of Indiana. Regardless, he’s proven to be a solid recruiter, a great ball coach, and will likely bring his son Tucker with him much like he did to West Virginia.
Time will tell how things work out in Bloomington, though this move does leave a hollowness in Morgantown. West Virginia will have a fourth different head coach next season and are set for another extensive coaching search. Will West Virginia find a successful new leader for this program? Will DeVries regret leaving town for the Hoosiers?