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3 Guys Before the Game - Darian DeVries to Become Next West Virginia Men's Basketball Coach (Episode 541) · 3 Guys Before The Game

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  Hi, everybody, it's Tony COURRIDI And this is an instant reaction from three
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  guys before the game on the hiring of Darren Devrees as the twenty third head
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  men's basketball coach at West Virginia University, joined by the other two guys,
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  Brad Howe and Hoppy Kerchville. Well guys. Ren Baker said it shouldn't take
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  all that long. He was right. It took less than two weeks for
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  West Virginia to get its hire made. It's Darren Devrees and Hoppy. He
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  comes from Drake University where he has had tremendous success and not only as a
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  player, but as a longtime assistant at Creighton. West Virginia has just hired
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  a guy with a lot of success behind him in his coaching days. Yeah,
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  Brad's going to talk a lot about that. I'm going to talk about
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  this search. And I see four or five angles here on this search.
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  One is that it was data driven. It started with being data driven.
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  Who has had success and not just wins and losses, but success programs success
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  And once you do that through the broad spectrum, then you get a list
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  of candidates. Certainly, Rin Baker had had a fairly extensive list on that,
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  and then it then come the interviews, the phones or the skypes or
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  zooms and then face to face and then you start to narrow it down more
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  and morning you really got down to about three or four people at that point,
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  people talked about not only him, but also Medved and Byington and a
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  couple others. And then is it a culture fit? And Brady's going to
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  talk about that too. Is it a fit as opposed to just trying to
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  hire a person? And that's really important because he got family involved, And
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  is that coach going to feel comfortable going from wherever they are to wherever they're
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  to coming here? Gordon Gee had to sign off on it, and Gordon
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  Gee, i know, had a long conversation with Devrees and felt very good
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  about it, so he signed off on it. And you also in this
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  search, you want you want your list to be your finalist to be those
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  who want to be here. You don't want to be in a position like
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  Louisville that this guy turned it down, that guy turned it down, that's
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  a that's a bad vibe to have. So want you want the finalists to
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  be people who want the job and want to be here, and so I
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  think it was a really smartly conducted search. Happened pretty quickly, and I
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  think that with the searches that are going on, that Ren Baker was a
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  couple of days ahead of some of these other schools that are still trying to
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  fill positions. So search wise, I thought it was executed very well,
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  and you ended up with a guy that checks And Gordon Geese said this to
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  me too, that checks a lot of boxes. Yeah, forty eight years
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  old is Darren Devrees And just by coincidence, also, just like the senator
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  from the state of Iowa, you know this guy. I do know him
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  well, have followed his career since he played basketball at Aplington Parkersburg High School,
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  then to Northern Iowa where he was a really talented player as well.
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  I think he said a couple of things there that make a lot of sense,
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  and we'll dive into some of this culture fit here. Two things you're
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  looking for. You need a really good coach and then you want somebody that
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  fits. And I think Ren hit a home run on both of those parts.
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  You talk about a guy in Darren de Freese at Drake Right now,
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  let's talk about Drake for a second. Seven NCAA tournaments in the school's history,
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  three under DeFreeze has won twenty plus games every year he's been there.
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  That's a hard job, guys. Let me say that again. Seven NCAA
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  tournaments in their history do have a final four back with Dolph Polliam and my
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  old high school coach, Jim O'Day got under the sixty nine final four.
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  But then you went a long time and there's been some really good coaches.
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  Tom Davis you may have heard of him right formerly at Boston College and the
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  University of Iowa. His son Keno got him into an nca tournament, but
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  there were a long stretch where Drake was not in. So that tells me
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  a lot. I think you get a really stable guy in Darren de Fries
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  seventeen eighteen seasons at Creighton as an assistant, talk about passing up some jobs
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  to make sure he had the right fit, and for him that was getting
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  back to Drake. Success as an assistant under Dana Altman, success under Greg
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  McDermott. Both guys that we've just watched play in the NCAA tournament and had
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  high level success. So I think you get a really talented coach now go
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  to culture fit mentioned from Applington, Iowa small town. I think Darren dev
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  is a guy that is going to understand what West Virginia is all about.
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  I think this is a really good culture fit, not kind of a good
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  culture fit. I think this is a guy West Virginia fans are going to
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  really rally around, really like feel that it's somebody just like them. I
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  think from that side of it, this is absolutely a home run. And
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  the defense is a key in what they do. They run. Obviously they
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  run really great offense, but you've got to be able to guard in this
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  league. And Ren Baker said that from the beginning of his search. You
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  take a look at the two best teams this year in the Big Twelve Conference
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  in both Houston and Iowa State, and they guard, and you've got no
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  choice. You have to guard in this league. And I think he brings
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  that characteristic with him. And in addition to that, and this had probably
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  not a whole lot to do with the final decision, but it just happens
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  to be bringing with him his son, who's the two time Missouri Valley Conference
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  Player of the Year and obviously West Virginia's roster is going to be in a
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  massive rebuild from the beginning, and so it's nice to have a piece.
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  There's no question Tucker's really good. Was a sixty recruit coming out of high
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  school six seven player that can do it all. Shoot from the outside,
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  let him in rebounds, let him assist, let him in points. So
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  that's an instant start with the transfer portal. Guys, if Tucker to Freeze
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  were to hit the open market, he would probably be one of the top
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  five players nationally, maybe higher than that. West Virginia starts with a building
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  block in Tucker to Freeze real quick. On the profile of Darren's teams,
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  and it's pretty simple. It's hard to do, hoppy, but it's pretty
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  simple. They make shots, they don't turn it over, and they are
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  an elite defensive rebounding team. So yeah, they'll guard you. But their
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  secret to defense really is they don't give you a second and third shot.
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  You're gonna get one, and you better make it. So if you're having
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  a tough shooting night, you're not getting in there for more rebounds. If
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  you look at his Drake teams, they were very well constructed. They have
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  different pieces that play and compliment each other very well. So, yes,
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  he's tough, the team will be tough, and their offense is really good.
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  You don't learn under Dana Altman and Greg McDermott and not be very good
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  offensively. His Drake teams have been that as well. Yeah, and my
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  understanding is that Tucker was very excited about playing in the Big twelve. I
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  mean, he's he's a great player and he wants a chance to play against
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  great players. Yeah, that's all. Yeah, that's a great showcase for
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  him. A guy that has aspirations to play professionally, to be able.
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  He's done all he can do in the Missouri Valley Freshman of the year,
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  two time player of the Year, get a chance to go in the best
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  basketball league in America. That's a that's an absolute you know, and for
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  for Devrez as a coach. And look, Drake is an excellent school academically.
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  Oh, Brad's from Des Moines. Couldn't get in there, couldn't get
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  in, couldn't get in to where Drake. But you know, enrollment of
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  five thousand, the coach of salary things like six hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
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  So this is this is this is a move up. This is a
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  move up for him and an opportunity and again, a pretty young guy.
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  But I like the fact he hasn't been everywhere, you know. I like
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  the fact he was at a place his schooled as an assistant for sixteen or
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  seventeen years, has been at Drake for whatst seven years? So I like
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  that. And again, it just feels culturally, and I understand that he
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  likes that. He and his family liked the idea of where this is,
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  you know, geographically. I mean, he's a Midwestern guy, but it
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  feels the atmosphere is still simwharre to where he's coming from. Hop If there's
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  anything I feel really comfortable about saying, it's if you're from Iowa and come
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  to West Virginia, you will find a lot of similarities. And I think
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  I'm fairly exp on that exact situation. Yes, I can speak directly to
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  that. Yeah, all right, So it looks like Darien the way that's
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  spelled, But it's Darren, all right, It's Darren Devrees twenty darn Nalen,
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  Yeah, like don Nalen. Yeah, twenty third coach in the history
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  of West Virginia University. West Virginia connection two thousand and five. He's on
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  the staff at Crayton and that unbelievable run that West Virginia went on, if
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  you remember, they beat Crayton on a missed shot by a great player by
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  the name of Nate Funk from the Blue Jays, And when West Virginia went
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  on the next round to beat wake Forest on its way to the Sweet sixteen
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  and eventually the Elite eight. So there was just a little touch back in
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  the day, all right. So Darren Devrees is the Mountaineer coach. We
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  will continue to follow this. We'll have a complete breakdown on three guys before
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  the game and rate on the website at wvmetronews dot com.