‘You cannot survive without a good locker room’: As Darian DeVries attacks the transfer portal, ‘fit’ is critical and there will be no compromises with it. So, how will he put together his Indiana basketball roster?

Darian DeVries has flipped his rosters in one year before and done so by bringing in close to double-digit numbers of new players. So what he’s about to embark on this spring with Indiana basketball won’t be new. Monday begins the opening of the transfer portal — just six days after being officially introduced as the new head coach for the Hoosiers. So while he has navigated these waters of roster construction before, this time may be slightly different.

DeVries has worked at Creighton, Drake and West Virginia as either an assistant or head coach. All three of histories and successes of their own, but non have proven to have the tradition and thus, the resources that Indiana has. With the arrival of the NIL and transfer portal era, having the necessary resources are priority A when it comes to building, and retaining a roster. So because of that, he’ll be heading into an offseason with everything he can possibly ask for to put together the exact roster he wants, and needs, all while understanding he is the one that will ultimately seal the deal on a successful season or not.

“Everything is in place here for us to have the opportunity to win and to win at a high level. Now our job is to make that happen,” DeVries said last week. “Resources certainly are a huge part of giving you those opportunities, but resources do not win games. We want to be a very process-oriented program with a core fabric built around that work. The people we surround ourselves with and the players that have a desire to want to be a part of something special.

“We want to build something that is sustainable for a long period of time, and we will do that by staying true to what this program is about.”

Indiana is set to graduate four players from its roster last year — three of which were starters in Trey Galloway, Anthony Leal and Oumar Ballo. While Luke Goode is still working through his potential waiver process, there’s no guarantee that he’ll be back either. And, there are bound to be more than just the two players — Malik Reneau and Gabe Cupps — that are currently in the portal from Indiana in the coming days.

So, starting on Monday — the work truly begins.

“The last thing you want to do is every year come in and have to sign 10, 11 new guys. That’s just hard to make it function. The first year you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to get a roster put together, and then we build from there,” DeVries said. “Hopefully that retention is as close to 100 percent as we can because, like we said, they just love it here, they enjoy it, we’ve got the resources for them to stay here. Now you can build consistency, and that’s ultimately what you want to get to.”

While it’s nearly a guarantee at this point that IU will be welcoming Darian’s son, Tucker, to the roster next year — there’s no expectation that other players from West Virginia will join him in Bloomington.

So it will truly be starting from scratch for the new Indiana basketball head coach. How will he attack the portal?

“I think the biggest thing and where you can get yourself in trouble is you’re not building a collection of players. You have to build a team, and a team has to be able to fit together, play together, win together, be able to function together,” DeVries said. “That’s the number one thing, and I’ve had to do it now several times because basketball has changed. College athletics has changed. We’ve had multiple times now as a head coach we’ve had to sign nine, ten guys in a given season.

” … When you have to sign nine, ten guys, it’s easy to go like, oh, let’s just give in for this particular one, and we’re just not going to do that. I know our staff, sometimes we get frustrated with, like, hey, we got this kid, we can get here, here’s a few of the red flags, and we’re out. We just really believe that locker room is critical because you cannot survive without a good locker room.”

DeVries is bringing with him to Indiana an offense that will look to push the tempo when there are chances, and shoot 3s. Those are two vast differences from the last eight years of Indiana basketball. His style of play will — and has already — prove to be attractive to recruits around the country, both in the portal and at the high school level.

His ‘modern’ style of basketball is something that was a point of emphasis for the Indiana athletic department when seeking out its next head coach.

“We wanted to make certain that we had someone that really understands and really equally importantly has embraced modern roster construction. That’s huge,” IU Athletic Director Scott Dolson said. “A proven evaluator and developer of players. We wanted to make certain that we had a modern playing style. We have to have a head coach that understands where things are going.”

So with Indiana’s roster expected to look quite different from a season ago, the expectation is this will be the outlier moving forward. While DeVries knows the transfer portal is a tool he needs to utilize, he also knows in order to build the program he envisions — it’s not repeatable every single year.

“Certainly everything has changed from five, ten years ago in terms of high school recruiting, the portal and things. In our ideal world we would build it from the high school up. This first year, that’s not possible,” DeVries said. “We’re going to have to fill some holes in the roster through the portal, and then your hope is in each year, you might lose a guy or two. Your hope is they love it here so much that nobody ever wants to leave here, and then you replace a few guys from the portal, continue to build through the high school, hopefully as a sophomore. Then you can keep two or three high school kids and get two or three freshmen, and now over the course of time you’re going to be able to build some consistency within your roster.”

Monday begins the month long stretch of the transfer market with the portal officially closing on April 22 — the critical first step for DeVries at Indiana and a step that needs to set the tone for year one in his tenure in Bloomington.

SEE ALSO: ‘You can’t win if you don’t make shots’: Darian DeVries bringing ‘modern playing style’ of offense to Indiana basketball and it revolves around shooting 3s

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