Darian DeVries Identifies Biggest Lesson Learned At Indiana

It became clear early in coach Darian DeVries' first season that Indiana didn't have enough size and depth in the front court.

And as the physical grind of the Big Ten season wore on, that's one of the main reasons the Hoosiers stumbled to the finish line. With losses in five of it's last six games, Indiana (18-13, 9-11) needs a deep run in the Big Ten Tournament to reach the NCAA Tournament.

While it's too late to change anything about this season's outlook, DeVries acknowledged an important lesson he has learned that could lead to improvement down the road.

"I think the biggest thing that we took from this year, even when looking back at last year, was the bigs at the four and five spot, the size and the girth here and the physicality, it's just a lot different," DeVries said on Monday's Inside Indiana Basketball radio show.

"And as you go into year two, obviously you learn from, hey, you go through the league in one year and how everybody plays and there's different styles and and stuff and not everybody's the same. But just the overall, and even talking to coaches throughout the spring and the summer and as you get into the season, that's been the number one thing where we gotta really build that depth is on that interior at those four and five spots."

When DeVries was hired last March, he spoke about shooting and scoring quickly against a broken defense being key pieces of his offensive philosophy.

For a program that seldom had strong 3-point shooting teams under former head coaches Mike Woodson and Archie Miller, that was a welcomed change. Under DeVries, the Hoosiers rank top 40 nationally in 3-point attempts and makes per game, and they're above average at 34.6%, which ranks 158th out of 365 teams.

However, DeVries failed to balance his roster with shooters and interior strength. Tucker DeVries, at 6-foot-8, logs most of the minutes at power forward, but he's really more of an offense-first small forward. Indiana is also undersized at center, where 6-foot-9 Sam Alexis and 6-foot-10 Reed Bailey have essentially split the minutes.

Trent Sisley has chipped in 13.6 minutes per game, but his role has decreased significantly in the second half of Big Ten play. Perhaps DeVries thought 6-foot-8 Josh Harris or 6-foot-10 Andrej Acimovic would contribute this season, but neither has played.

That has left the Hoosiers undermanned in the front court in conference where physicality and size are vital on a game-by-game basis.

"I think the biggest thing again is just over the course of the season is when you don't have maybe as much depth as you would like," DeVries said. "We got Sam and Reed and Tucker for the most part have played the bulk of those interior minutes, those 80 minutes."

"Just as the season's gone on, the wear and tear of wearing those guys down, and really Reed having to play a little bit out of position and going from the four to the five, Tucker having to go a lot more into the three to the four and wrestling those guys down there. They've battled, we just didn't have enough depth in there throughout the course of the season, I didn't think, as the year's gone on. But they've certainly given all they have for us as they've done that, but that's where some of that showed up a little bit as the season went on."

Indiana play-by-play radio announcer Don Fischer asked DeVries if his philosophy on transfer portal recruiting will change heading into year two.

"Well, I don't know if you change your philosophy. You recruit to what you need to be good in this league," DeVries said. "You still recruit to how you play and what type of guys you want in your program. So from that standpoint, yeah, you're going to make some adjustments and understand, hey, we need to be a little bigger here, a little whatever there, and those are the things we certainly look for as we continue to build the roster up."

Indiana announced on Feb. 23 the hiring of Ryan Carr as the executive director of basketball. After 23 years with the Indiana Pacers, working his way up from scout to senior vice president of player personnel, Carr's role with the Hoosiers will focus on roster building.

"He would certainly be a big contributor in that and evaluations and things like that," DeVries said. "And now you're having time as you go through it and you got a whole staff put together as the portal season opens up. So that would certainly be a priority of ours as we're putting together that roster for next year."

From building a coaching staff to recruiting 13 new players and managing NIL money allocation, it was a complicated process for DeVries to build his first Indiana roster a year ago. His year-two rebuild will be challenging, too, as Indiana will lose Alexis, Bailey, DeVries, Lamar Wilkerson, Conor Enright and Tayton Conerway to graduation.

That leaves Nick Dorn, Jasai Miles, Trent Sisley, Aleksa Ristic, Josh Harris and Jason Drake as the only scholarship players who can return to Indiana next season, though they'll have the option of entering the transfer portal. DeVries also has three incoming freshmen in Vaughn Karvala (No. 51 in 2026, per 247Sports), Trevor Manhertz (No. 65) and Prince-Alexander Moody (No. 80).

While his first year isn't over yet, his team will have an uphill battle in the Big Ten Tournament to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. DeVries learned some valuable lessons and acknowledged his missteps this season, and now it's about applying those lessons as the transfer portal opens April 7.