NCAA Basketball: Top 10 best coaching hires from 2024 offseason

8. Darian DeVries (West Virginia)

When Bob Huggins was forced out by West Virginia, the Mountaineers didn’t panic. They took their time looking for the next head coach, penning Josh Eilert as the interim head coach while they searched. That hunt was several months longer than an average program is afforded, but landing on DeVries was a fantastic move that should benefit both sides, and not just because his son Tucker is coming with to Morgantown.

DeVries is an Iowa native who played at Northern Iowa and has spent the majority of his career working in the MVC. He spent twenty years on staff at Creighton under a pair of great coaches in Dana Altman and Greg McDermott. His own head coaching voyage started at Drake in 2018 and his six years with the Bulldogs were magnificent. He won an MVC title in his first year and led Drake to three of the last four NCAA Tournaments, with plenty of wins along the way.

With the right coach in place, West Virginia can be a contender in the Big 12 like they were just a few years ago under Huggins’ leadership. There’s certainly no guarantee that DeVries can turn things around, but he’s a great young coach with a fantastic pedigree. West Virginia waited for months to find their guy and they nabbed one of the best mid-major coaches in the land. How he handles that transition into a power conference will be the one big thing to watch.