Darian DeVries Offers Refreshing Take on NIL & Big 12 Travel

WVU's first-year head coach is adapting to the times.

Schuyler Callihan | Oct 24, 2024

Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

In this story:

West Virginia Mountaineers

Bob Huggins is one of the best coaches in college basketball history and there's no taking back all of the great things he did for West Virginia University and the great people in the state of West Virginia.

However, if there was one thing that grew a little old, well at least for some, it was his complaints about the ever-changing landscape of college athletics and the never-ending chaos that is conference realignment.

I'm not saying Huggs is wrong. NIL is a different beast, as is the travel in the Big 12 compared to what it used to be back in the Big East days. That said, there's nothing WVU, or anyone else, can do about it.

We've heard rumblings over the past handful of years that several big-name coaches were considering retirement because of how much change there has been at the collegiate level and we've seen that play out across all of college sports from Alabama football coach Nick Saban to most recently Virginia men's basketball coach Tony Bennett, hanging it up.

Like it or not, it's an adapt-or-die type of transition that we're in with college sports at the moment. Those who refuse to change their approach to recruiting, coaching, way of thinking, etc. won't experience as much success in the future as they had in the past.

First-year WVU men's basketball coach Darian DeVries is embracing all of the change and taking it for what it is.

“I think the biggest thing with college sports is it’s changed a lot and you just have to change with it. That’s how we approach it. As rules change and the guidelines change, you just evolve with them and adapt and try to make the most of it and do the best job you can and that’s what we’ve tried to do.”

Life in the Big 12 can be hell, and even more so now with four West Coast teams joining the league this year. But DeVries isn't making a big deal out of the travel. He knows it won't be easy and adjustments will be made along the way, but for him, it's all about controlling what you can control.

“It’s my first time, our first time in the league and having to travel, but I think overall coaches, players are pretty resilient in figuring out ways to adapt and adjust their sleep schedules and travel schedules. You just find out a way to make it work. Everybody in the league has to travel and go somewhere and we’re no different. It’s something that as the season goes on, I think our guys will adjust to as it goes.”

Thanks to the Big 12 schedule makers, DeVries' welcome to the league will be a bit of a baptism by fire, having to play Kansas on the road to open league play.

MORE STORIES FROM WEST VIRGINIA ON SI