One Wild Stat That Shows WVU is Ahead of Schedule Under Darian DeVries

West Virginia's first-year head coach continues to turn heads.

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

After last year's disaster of a season, the bar was set pretty low for first-year head coach Darian DeVries at West Virginia.

Given the massive roster and coaching staff turnover, there weren't many expectations for this year's group, other than to court a competitive team. Halfway through the season, DeVries has done way more than just have the Mountaineers competitive. To be frank, they're overachieving.

Despite the fact that the two are on opposite ends of the country, West Virginia and Gonzaga have played fairly often since 2012. The Mountaineers went 0-5 against the Zags in the five meetings before this season's matchup in the Bahamas. The last three games were close, with WVU falling by five points or less, one of which was a three-point defeat in the Sweet Sixteen. DeVries guided the Mountaineers to an 86-78 victory in overtime to advance in the winner's bracket of the Battle 4 Atlantis.

WVU was 0-11 against Kansas at Phog Allen Fieldhouse prior to this season. DeVries went in and came out victorious in his first trip to one of the toughest places to play in all of college basketball. It wasn't pretty, but they found a way to get the job done without two starters, Tucker DeVries and Amani Hansberry.

Sunday's win over Colorado was another notch in the belt for WVU, picking up their second Big 12 road win this season. Here is the wild part that you may not realize...those two wins match West Virginia's Big 12 road win total for the last three seasons COMBINED. They went 0-9 last season under interim head coach Josh Eilert, 2-7 in 2022-23, and 0-9 in 2021-22.

Winning on the road in this league should not be taken for granted, clearly. Beating Colorado isn't going to add another signature win to the NCAA Tournament resume, but it's one that WVU absolutely needed to get, considering they have Houston and Iowa State on deck. With a shorthanded roster and a challenging schedule, every win should be celebrated as a major deal.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - if this is the kind of results DeVries can obtain under far-from-ideal circumstances, then the sky is the limit for this program once he gets through a couple of recruiting cycles and has a 10-11-man rotation.

MORE STORIES FROM WEST VIRGINIA ON SI

WVU Flips Arkansas OL Transfer Ty'Kieast Crawford Away from UCLA

Rich Rodriguez Announces Travis Trickett as Senior Offensive Assistant

Which Five Transfers Will Make the Biggest Impact at West Virginia?

WVU QB Transfer Ryder Burton Chooses Transfer Destination