Quick Hits: Thoughts on Redshirts, Anticipation for the First Exhibition Game, and More

West Virginia University head coach Darian DeVries gives some insight on the Mountaineers preseason practice period.

West Virginia University head coach Darian DeVries / Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

The West Virginia Mountaineer men’s basketball team is in its third week of preseason practice, and head coach Darian DeVries provided an update on the Mountaineers ahead of the team’s first exhibition game on October 18th.

Thoughts on redshirts

Weve actually redshirted a lot of guys during my time. It’s changing some because of the [transfer] portal, and now that players don’t have to sit out, there’s not that built in redshirts. Its really hard when you have 13 guys on scholarship and all 13 guys are looking up at you wanting to play. In previous years, it’s been nice to have one or two guys that came in and they were transfers and they had to sit out so you didn’t have all 13 [looking at you], those two guys knew they were already sitting out. As a general rule, I try to leave it up to the kid. Before we start playing games, bring everybody in and kind of talk about where things are at, where I see them, what that role looks like, and then let them make those decisions. I’m never going to force a kid to redshirt. I want that to be their decision that they feel like that’s best for them.

Anticipation for the first exhibition game

I know our guys are ready to play even though we had the Italy [trip]. The Italy [exhibition games] is just a different typed of vibe and feel in terms of a game situation. Our guys are ready to play somebody else. They’re at that point right now and we need something new. It will be great to get in front of people too. I’ve always laughed about it but those first couple of times guys get in front of people, a different player shows up, so it take awhile to work through that too a little bit. Excited about the opportunity to play an exhibition game in front of our home crowd next Friday. I think that going to be a lot of fun for us. For our team, I know they’re excited about it as well.

Big 12 preseason rankings (prior to release)

The preseason rankings are harder now than they ever have been with the portal. I don’t put a lot of stock in it. I think a lot of times the preseason rankings are really more of a credit to las year’s team and who you have coming back because that’s what people have to go off of now. I think for us, we’re a team nobody’s seen. I don’t think you can give us a ranking and there’s a lot of teams in that situation. Until you start playing games, then you start to figure out who’s got what and for us, that’s all that matters.

Team improving since the Italy trip

I was recruiting yesterday, so I was flying back on the plane and I rewatched practice again to get ready for practice today and I went watched one of our Italy games and, thankfully, what a difference from that tape till now, it was actually really good for me to kind of see because it really stood out. Like, this is our team back in early August and what we look like today is a much-improved basketball team. So, I was kind of excited about that because there’s times when just see it day after day after day you don’t know if you’re making the progress you want to be making, but we certainly have come a long ways from that point.