Darian DeVries’ Long Stint As Creighton Assistant Prepared Him To Be A Head Coach

Indiana men’s basketball coach Darian DeVries worked long stints under Dana Altman and Greg McDermott at Creighton. It gave him the grounding to be successful.

Then-Creighton assistant coach Darian DeVries works the Bluejays during a 2007 practice. Then-Creighton head coach Dana Altman looks on in the background. / Creighton athletics

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Creighton’s presence in the top 25 and the NCAA Tournament is not considered noteworthy in 2025. The Bluejays have been regulars in the polls and the postseason for many years. A Big East Conference team, the Omaha, Neb., school is considered one of the many schools that have thrived with men’s basketball as their flagship sport.

Creighton has a proud history with 27 NCAA Tournament appearances and 28 All-Americans, but back in 1998 it would have been difficult to envision what the Bluejays program would become in the next quarter century.

The Bluejays were in a rut at the time. Creighton hadn’t won a Missouri Valley Conference championship since 1991. Dana Altman, hired as coach in 1994 after a stint at Kansas State, was making slow progress. Creighton played in the atmospheric but outdated Omaha Civic Auditorium.

The Big East? A 17,500-capacity arena? This didn’t seem to be in the cards for a Creighton program that had been playing in the shadow of the Missouri Valley Conference.

That was the situation when Darian DeVries arrived as a graduate student in 1998. He would be the one constant as the Bluejays went from afterthought to respected nationally.

Originally, DeVries aspired to be a high school basketball coach and teacher. When DeVries graduated from Northern Iowa in 1998, his coach, Eldon Miller, put in a call to Altman and persuaded him to bring him in as a graduate assistant.

Altman told the Des Moines Register in 2018 – when DeVries was hired as Drake’s head coach – that DeVries always demonstrated an eagerness to make something of his opportunity.

“Getting my start at Creighton ended up being just a true blessing," DeVries told the Des Moines Register in 2018. “Started out working for coach Altman, getting my master’s, and took it from there. Timing is everything. Getting a little lucky here and there is all part of it.”

DeVries was a graduate assistant for three seasons before Altman added him to his full-time staff in 2001. This coincided with the time that the Creighton program began to take off under Altman’s leadership.

When you listen to DeVries, you hear a lot of the principles that Altman holds dear as a head coach. Not deviating from a proven plan. Being a steady presence. Not overreacting in the moment.

Creighton assistant coach Darian DeVries (left) and head coach Dana Altman discuss strategy on the sideline of a 2009 Creighton game in Omaha, Neb. / Creighton athletics

Creighton won 22 games in the 1999 season, and one trait that helped the Bluejays progress to 11 straight 20-win seasons under Altman in the 2000s was guard play.

DeVries, a point guard at Northern Iowa, played a big role. One of his primary responsibilities was to work with the Creighton backcourt. The most famous players in that time were NBA pros Rodney Buford and Kyle Korver, but the Bluejays had lesser-known guards nationally who kept them near the top of the Missouri Valley Conference throughout the 2000s.

“When somebody works with you for 12 years, you really get a good feel for how they pick things up, how they relate to people, how they relate to the players. And in my opinion, for whatever that's worth, I just think he's really good. I think he's really talented. I think he works really hard,” Altman said in a recent NCAA Tournament press conference involving Altman’s current school, Oregon.

After seven NCAA Tournament appearances with DeVries on his staff, Altman left for the Oregon job and many assumed DeVries would go west with him. Long-time Altman cohorts Brian Fish (a Seymour, Ind., native) and Kevin McKenna (a former Indiana Pacer and Indiana State head coach) went west with Altman.

DeVries did not. Though Oregon probably would have paid more than Creighton, DeVries did not want to make that kind of move at that stage of his life.

It didn’t hurt that Altman’s replacement was Greg McDermott. A successful head coach at Northern Iowa who didn’t fare well in three seasons at Iowa State, McDermott was hoping for a career reset at Creighton.

He knew DeVries personally from the days when he recruited him out of high school as an assistant coach at North Dakota. He knew him professionally from going head-to-head with Creighton as Northern Iowa’s coach in the Missouri Valley Conference.

DeVries thought he would have an opportunity to stay at Creighton under McDermott, and he was right.

“I didn't feel like uprooting my family to the West Coast was ideal for us at that time. Certainly would have done it if there wasn't another opportunity,” DeVries said in an interview with Hoosiers On SI

“But when they hired Greg McDermott, he was someone I had known. He had actually recruited me out of high school, so that opportunity to kind of stay in the Midwest and work under him was something that was really appealing to my family and I. That’s ultimately why we decided to do that,” DeVries added.

Creighton head coach Greg McDermott and assistant coach Darian DeVries map out strategy during a 2011 game. / Creighton athletics

McDermott knew what he was getting in DeVries. While Greg McDermott’s success at Creighton was influenced heavily by his talented son Doug McDermott, DeVries played a major role. too.

“His ability to pour himself into his job was very impressive. There is no chance that we would have been able to return to the NCAA Tournament in our second year, had it not been for D-Rock. He was a tremendous resource for me from day one,” Greg McDermott said in an interview with Hoosiers On SI.

Creighton made it to the NCAA Tournament out of the Missouri Valley Conference in 2012 and 2013. The Bluejays were in the right place at the right time in 2013 when the basketball-only Big East Conference was formed. A Jesuit school with like-minded institutions on the East Coast, and with an All-American in Doug McDermott, Creighton accepted its Big East invitation.

Even with the greater degree of difficulty, Creighton kept winning with DeVries on staff. NCAA Tournament appearances in 2014, 2017 and 2018 made the Bluejays a constant national presence.

What McDermott saw in DeVries are some of the traits he has used successfully as a head coach.

“He can be demanding, because he understands the necessity of building a relationship with his players that is based off trust. He will go to war for his guys. That will become quickly evident to Indiana fans,” McDermott said.

DeVries stayed with McDermott from 2010-18. He did apply for other jobs, including Drake’s open position in 2013 and 2017. Ray Giacoletti got the Drake job in 2013 and Niko Medved, recently named Minnesota’s head coach, got the nod in 2017.

When Medved cashed in on a single .500 season at Drake to take the Colorado State job, DeVries finally got the call. It was 20 seasons of being an assistant to get there.

DeVries feels blessed that he got the opportunity to learn under Altman and McDermott. What’s the main thing he took away from working for both?

“You talk about somebody that's been able to have a couple of the greatest in Greg McDermott and Dana Altman that ever did it. They're both different, but they're both the same in their approach,” DeVries said.

“They know how they go about assembling a team and wanting a locker room to look like. That’s probably the thing I've stayed really consistent on, making sure that on the front end that your locker room is really in a good place,” DeVries said.

DeVries would get to apply those principles at Drake. It would have an immediate effect.

Part 1: From the farm to the bright lights of Indiana.

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