Michigan Basketball: 11 candidates to replace Juwan Howard as Head Coach
By Joey Loose
Darian DeVries
If Michigan looks to go the mid-major route with this hire, then there are actually a couple of very attractive candidates out there. These aren’t the old days of Shaka Smart or Brad Stevens being on the market, but DeVries has proven his coaching talent in recent years.
A native of Iowa, DeVries played his college ball at Northern Iowa before beginning a long coaching stint at Creighton. Serving under both Dana Altman and Greg McDermott, DeVries helped build success with the Bluejays for twenty years before his first head coaching gig came at Drake in 2018. After an MVC regular season title in year one, DeVries has now led the Bulldogs to three NCAA Tournaments, including each of the last two MVC Tournament titles, all while averaging 25 wins a year.
Doing this in the MVC is different than doing this in the Big Ten. How would DeVries adjust to the bigger stage and better resources? He’s lived and worked in Big Ten country his whole life and has truly built a potent program with these Bulldogs. He won’t be the first call that Michigan will make, but somebody is going to pluck DeVries in the coming years and get one hell of a coach.