Darian DeVries Finishes Regular Season with Exact Same Record as Ross Hodge

Darian DeVries looked like the guy of the future for WVU until he decided to bolt for a blue blood after just one year in Morgantown.

One year later, both West Virginia and the school that hired DeVries, Indiana, finished the regular season with an identical 18-13 record heading into their respective conference tournaments. The Hoosiers just wrapped up their regular season slate with a loss to Ohio State, giving them their fifth loss in their last six games.

DeVries earned so much respect from WVU fans (before his departure) and from others around the nation for the big-time wins the Mountaineers had a year ago, but Ross Hodge had a few in his first year at the helm, taking down Kansas, BYU, and completing sweeps of Cincinnati and UCF.

Yes, Hodge had some bad losses, most notably Utah and Kansas State, but DeVries had his fair share as well. Let's not forget that home loss to Arizona State, a 13-point road loss to a sub .500 Kansas State team, and getting bounced in their first game of the Big 12 tournament against Colorado, who had just 13 wins going into that contest.

DeVries left WVU for Indiana because he thought he would have a better chance to win a national title there

Indiana Head Coach Darian DeVries during the Indiana versus Minnesota men's basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. | Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

"This is unquestionably one of the top jobs in America. As someone who grew up in the Midwest loving the game of basketball, I've always admired the IU Basketball program for its championship-level success, tradition, and fan support," DeVries said in the school's press release. "There's a passion to succeed at the very highest levels both within the Big Ten and in the NCAA Tournament, and that's a desire that as a coach I share. On top of that, the alignment is there on a department and university level to make that happen. I'm excited for this opportunity and am ready to work relentlessly to assemble a staff and a roster that competes for championships."

Now, I'm not going to completely write DeVries off. I still think he's a good coach and will likely have success in Bloomington at some point. But if you compare the two programs since the turn of the century, WVU has been more nationally relevant than the Hoosiers, and it's not really close.

Instead of viewing it as a bad decision on DeVries' part, look at it as Hodge's first year in Morgantown was better than most perceive it to be.