Devries to West Virginia

[Sir Sci]

Odd fit, but I'm not sure many people really fit in West Virginia.

I am probably more surprised that Tucker wants to play on a team that will certainly not make the NCAA tournament next year in a Big 12 that is loaded.

It does seem like a specifically odd fit for a successful coach from a medium sized private school that values quality of education and investing in basketball to move to a large state school that is slashing and burning its academic programs.

[Milanmiracle]

Odd fit, but I'm not sure many people really fit in West Virginia.

I am probably more surprised that Tucker wants to play on a team that will certainly not make the NCAA tournament next year in a Big 12 that is loaded.

It does seem like a specifically odd fit for a successful coach from a medium sized private school that values quality of education and investing in basketball to move to a large state school that is slashing and burning its academic programs.

Simple. Big 12 Conference, NIL money and the checks are bigger. As long as the school remains solvent, I’m not sure their academic programs amount to a hill of beans to a basketball coach beyond recruiting.

[municup14]

Any news or rumors on who will Drakes new coach be.And it will be interesting to see if he goes after any MVC players that have entered the portal

[DUBulldog]

Any news or rumors on who will Drakes new coach be.And it will be interesting to see if he goes after any MVC players that have entered the portal

No clue who, but I would be surprised if there isn't an announcement by Monday.

Drake is being very tight lipped (as they should be), and the local paper certainly hasn't provided any information.

[municup14]

Possibly one of the current Assistants may take over.

[Bulldog4life24]

Drake's going to announce later today and its heavily rumored to be Ben McCollumn from NMSU.

Other main candidate was lead assistant Marty Richter (discussed earlier). Don't have any details on why it took so long for us to choose b/w 1a or 1b

[jturner38]

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-baske ... n-mccollum

[Bulldog4life24]

Great hire by Drake. We have to put a whole new roster together and not sure if we can replicate what DD did in year one, but we'll hope to be in top half at least next year (if not top 4). Gonna be interesting to see, outside of Bradley, who recruits the portal best.

Lots of playing time available throughout the conference

[BCPanther]

Great hire by Drake. We have to put a whole new roster together and not sure if we can replicate what DD did in year one, but we'll hope to be in top half at least next year (if not top 4). Gonna be interesting to see, outside of Bradley, who recruits the portal best.

Lots of playing time available throughout the conference

There's definitely opportunity for whichever new coach can put a roster together to get to the Top 4. Bradley and UNI kept the most together, we'll see if that rings true in March.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Watching DeVries' press conference. Darian went out of his way to thank the Drake President, AD, all former players, and the community, and said that he's forever grateful for Drake and it'll always be part of his family. He later mentioned he had opportunities to leave Creighton in 20 years there, and would only leave Creighton for something special: and that was Drake for him and that "there was a vision there, there was a plan there".

WVU AD Wren Baker highlighted DeVries' loyalty and DeVries staying at Drake for 6 years.

DeVries did mention the 2005 WVU/Creighton NCAA Tournament game and that there were controversial calls, if any Valley fans here remember that.

WVU AD was asked "When you look at recent D-I hires like Michigan, they've all gone to the same market: lower mid-major schools. What drew you to look at smaller schools for a coach and what do you think has created that trend for other schools to also go the same way?"

WVU AD answered: "I got great respect for the MIssouri Valley. The Missouri Valley is a great, great league. You can go back in time and see a lot of postseason success and history and tradition in that conference. And I have a lot of respect for the job that coach did at Drake. I know what that job was when he took it over - it was not a very good job and he's turned it into a good job. It's a much more attractive job today."