How Is Darian Devries Doing?

[Golfman25]

4 minutes ago, Hoosier987 said:

I knew people would start saying this. We have no earthly idea if DeVries hired the wrong guy. Let’s circle back to this after 5 years. If there was ever a time for McCollum to make noise it would be now. His two best players in Stirtz and Banks (who have been in his system a long time) are both gone after this year 

Who we hiring in 5 years?  : }

[8bucks]

18 minutes ago, Asha’man said:

Ben McCollum didn’t want to come here. Iowa was always his top choice. So it’s not even a debate to have. 

I really did not say we needed McCollum.  It is a fair discussion to compare first year coaches and their seasons. A lot of talk about when we hired our assistants but we chose our HC very early and our HC made a series of decisions that led to a bad year. 

[8bucks]

8 minutes ago, Hoosier987 said:

I knew people would start saying this. We have no earthly idea if DeVries hired the wrong guy. Let’s circle back to this after 5 years. If there was ever a time for McCollum to make noise it would be now. His two best players in Stirtz and Banks (who have been in his system a long time) are both gone after this year 

McCollum got a lot from rest of the roster though too. Some of those guys were not expected to do much but had some huge moments for them. 
 

Now is the time for Indiana to do something. Dolson has to get some $, top 5 level $, and DD plus the new GM cannot swing and miss again. 

[Josh]

58 minutes ago, Hoosier987 said:

I knew people would start saying this. We have no earthly idea if DeVries hired the wrong guy. Let’s circle back to this after 5 years. If there was ever a time for McCollum to make noise it would be now. His two best players in Stirtz and Banks (who have been in his system a long time) are both gone after this year 

Five years??  Oof.  Learn quicker my friend.

[Solsberryberries]

Had a conversation today with someone who knows Brownell.  Brownell turned down the opportunity for the IU job last year.  This is where we are.  I can’t think of any candidate besides Beard that was mentioned last year that didn’t win a game or two so far in the tourney this year.

We missed it all together.  

[IUCrazy2]

7 hours ago, Hoosier987 said:

I knew people would start saying this. We have no earthly idea if DeVries hired the wrong guy. Let’s circle back to this after 5 years. If there was ever a time for McCollum to make noise it would be now. His two best players in Stirtz and Banks (who have been in his system a long time) are both gone after this year 

Fair but I would love to be selling, "I went to the Sweet 16 in my first year" when I go to the portal as opposed to "Well, if you ignore what happened last year, this is my vision..."

That doesn't mean the race is over by any means but it does get awfully tiring that we always need "X" years to get things done when all of these other programs in our orbit, many of whom we used to regularly dog walk, can get things going right away.  It has gotten to the point where I f---ing hate the month of March.  Just a long and sustained kick to the nuts every year.

[str8baller]

8 hours ago, 8bucks said:

we chose our HC very early

Last month it was “Devries started to late to be expected to win.” 

[Hoosier987]

2 hours ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Fair but I would love to be selling, "I went to the Sweet 16 in my first year" when I go to the portal as opposed to "Well, if you ignore what happened last year, this is my vision..."

That doesn't mean the race is over by any means but it does get awfully tiring that we always need "X" years to get things done when all of these other programs in our orbit, many of whom we used to regularly dog walk, can get things going right away.  It has gotten to the point where I f---ing hate the month of March.  Just a long and sustained kick to the nuts every year.

I understand. Year 2 is going to be pivotal for DeVries. 

[ronzo4IU]

8 hours ago, Solsberryberries said:

Had a conversation today with someone who knows Brownell.  Brownell turned down the opportunity for the IU job last year.  This is where we are.  I can’t think of any candidate besides Beard that was mentioned last year that didn’t win a game or two so far in the tourney this year.

We missed it all together.  

And I'm glad he did if true.

[Tasmanian Devil]

On 3/17/2026 at 7:16 PM, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Glad you can do that.  
 

As it stands right now, the only thing I’m optimistic about is Dolson and DeVries NOW know they need to win. Why it took them a year is excuse making in its finest.  Besides the pressure to win and build a better roster and execute better, there is very little I’m optomistic about.  The returning players, if we have any, are just whatever. The recruits seem like solid long term pieces if they can build at a place like Indiana without getting impatient.  
 

Hard to really expect much from any of them year 1. We went after year 1 impact makers but didn’t land any.  Moody’s film might translate early but he’s not a Jordan Smith. Or a Deron Rippey where he’s on another level with athleticism.  
 

Portal targets and landings will tell us everything we need to know.  
 

 

Without question, this is an important offseason for CDD.

Looking at the season just concluded, there were serious flaws in our roster. Lamar was able to put up strong performances but could be streaky. Tuck played hard but wasn’t very athletic and got exposed defensively. We had no real inside presence, either scoring or rebounding. Most importantly, we had no point guard (IMO, one reason Iowa won yesterday is that McCollum brought a pretty good PG with him to Iowa City).

Not sure who all we will target, but there’s no way that we can have a repeat of last season. It’s gonna be an interesting few weeks to see how we reset the table.

[Home Jersey]

I'm not really encouraged or discouraged by anything DDV or staff say at this point. I just want them to show me not tell me. Year 2 has to be much better. 

[Solsberryberries]

1 hour ago, ronzo4IU said:

And I'm glad he did if true.

You wouldn’t take his record since NIL/portal changes?

 

[Solsberryberries]

1 hour ago, ronzo4IU said:

And I'm glad he did if true.

And his 24 wins this year came with 8 new guys, very little returning production.

[Pagoda]

22 minutes ago, BluegrassHoosier859 said:

I'm not the original poster but I think there are enough things you can point to as reasons why this season went the way it did and they should be fairly easily fixable. Devries has acknowledged that this roster wasnt good enough and appears to know what he needs to do to fix it. With the resources we have he should be able to get more talent with a full off season and staff in place despite missing the tourney in year 1. 

Im hoping the red flags that popped up this year are direct results of a deficient roster that took too long to come together because devries was trying to assemble a killer staff. Once he whiffed on the staff he was left scrambling and put together an extremely experienced albeit not very talented roster. I think he realized most of the talent was already committed elsewhere by the time he had his staff in place and tried to compensate by having the most experience. It didnt work, but at least it was a plan. 

He has an awesome resume as an assistant and a pretty good one as a head coach. I think he'll be fine. 

I think after year 1 you could just as easily find reasons why it will work as you could why it wouldnt. It just depends on how you want to see it. Im still choosing to be optimistic.

This post was in another thread, but just responding in this topic.

This is the narrative we've got to hope is right.  If it's not... we are in trouble.

It seems to me this basically all comes down to getting the portal right, which will end up fixing all our other issues.

Personally, I think doing that will go a long way, but I'm kinda worried there are some other head coach skill deficiencies present.  Some of the player dev and team evolution stuff this past season was worrying, and I'm not sure that can be attributed to screwing up the portal.  TBD.  CDD has a pretty good coaching record, though this is a new level for him...

But, nothing else to do now but hope and be optimistic.  Fingers crossed.

[Shooter]

12 minutes ago, Solsberryberries said:

You wouldn’t take his record since NIL/portal changes?

 

Brownell has had a mid-late career renaissance, so credit to him for that. But he's been there for 16 years and won a total of 5 NCAA tourney games. I don't think that would fly here.

[str8baller]

16 minutes ago, Solsberryberries said:

And his 24 wins this year came with 8 new guys, very little returning production.

ACC is really weak outside of a few teams. If you want to be considered great—which IU basketball should be striving for—he should win that league at least occasionally. He’s a nice coach and has seemingly found his grove there. 
it’s probably best for all parties involved if he stays at Clemson for a long time. 

[IUHoosierJoe]

2 minutes ago, Shooter said:

Brownell has had a mid-late career renaissance, so credit to him for that. But he's been there for 16 years and won a total of 5 NCAA tourney games. I don't think that would fly here.

A lot of his renaissance is the result of a weak ACC the last several years. He still gets consistently beaten by good and really good teams. 

[str8baller]

14 minutes ago, Pagoda said:

Personally, I think doing that will go a long way, but I'm kinda worried there are some other head coach skill deficiencies present.  Some of the player dev and team evolution stuff this past season was worrying, and I'm not sure that can be attributed to screwing up the portal.  TBD. 

The roster construction excuse seems to have been bought hook, line, and sinker by the majority of the fanbase, so I expect them to keep leaning on that heavily until next season.  
 

But what no one has really answered yet is why we completely melted down the last part of the season. After beating a bad Oregon team we went 1-6 with our only win being a bad Minny team at home. I didn’t expect to win at Illinois or Purdue but we were completely listless setting a 50 year margin of loss record at Purdue. Lost twice to Northwestern and didn’t really get close at OSU. 
 

Almost every single one of those games had a tourney birth on the line. Both NW games were known to be near tourney-birth games and we just laid down like dogs in the second half each game. Ohio State wasn’t much better and a tourney birth was on the line.  
 

Are we blaming the lack of effort and urgency on the roster too? 

[Five Prime]

IU could hire any coach they want, and at this point, I wouldn't expect much different results. 

[Five Prime]

I don't live in Indiana anymore. Do people even talk about IU bball now or is it an afterthought?