Country Music Star Praises Javon Small & Darian DeVries for Taking WVU to the Dance

It's March and the Mountaineers are going dancing, thanks to its rockstar head coach/point guard duo.

Feb 5, 2025; Fort Worth, Texas, USA; West Virginia Mountaineers guard Javon Small (7) speaks with West Virginia Mountaineers head coach Darian DeVries during the second half against the TCU Horned Frogs at Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images | Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Saturday evening, the West Virginia Mountaineers capped off the 2024-25 regular season with a 72-65 victory over the UCF Knights inside the WVU Coliseum.

The win brings the Mountaineers to a 19-12 (10-10) mark, solidifying their spot in the NCAA Tournament. Now, it's just a matter of what they'll be seeded, who they'll play, and where.

Entering the year, expectations were rather low, considering head coach Darian DeVries had to build this thing from scratch. When his son, Tucker, went down in the team's eighth game of the season, there was a great deal onf concern about how WVU would be able to muster up enough wins to make it to the big dance.

Thanks to the tremendous coaching job of DeVries and the stellar play from soon-to-be First Team All-Big 12 selection, Javon Small, West Virginia will slip into its dancing shoes once again.

In yesterday's win, Small nearly recorded a triple-double, finishing the game with 25 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds. The performance captured the attention of Morgantown, West Virginia native and rising country music star, Charles Wesley Godwin, who tweeted his unofficial vote for the Big 12 Coach of the Year and Player of the Year.

What a regular season @WVUhoops! What a team! Darian DeVries - Coach of the year. Javon Small - Player of the year. Let’s Go!
— Charles Wesley Godwin (@CharlesWesleyG) March 9, 2025

West Virginia will have the next few days off before participating in the Big 12 Conference tournament in Kansas City. They earned the No. 8 seed, which gives them a first round bye (Tuesday) and will meet the winner of No. 9 TCU/No. 16 Colorado on Wednesday.

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