Even though Indiana had already lost four players to the transfer portal, both before and after Darian DeVries was announced as the next head basketball coach, Indiana played their cards the best way possible.
Just 36 hours after finding out they would not be playing in the NCAA Tournament, or any postseason tournament for that matter, the Indiana Hoosiers quickly closed the book on the 2024-2025 season and started a new book, the Darian DeVries edition of Indiana basketball and hired the former West Virginia coach quickly.
Bringing in DeVries when they did was a smart play on Indiana's part because the transfer portal was set to open less than a week later. The portal officially opened on Monday, March 24, and is set to close about a month later on April 22. That means that DeVries had six days to get settled into his new position before he had the task of making some phone calls.
Players in the portal probably aren't going to want to go to a program that doesn't have their head coach yet, a program like West Virginia, so with DeVries at Indiana already, it makes the Hoosiers a more enticing landing spot for any prospective transfers.
Other programs made quick work of their coaching hirings as well like Texas hiring Xavier's Sean Miller less than 24 hours after parting ways with Rodney Terry. Even though Iowa waited longer to hire their coach, they still brought in Ben McCollum the day the portal opened, which will probably help the Hawkeyes.
DeVries had the ability to talk with the guys still in the program before the portal opened and sense who was going to stick around adn who was planning to leave, helping him make his plan for who he wanted to target in the portal. All in all, Indiana did everything exactly the way they should have in bringing in a coach quickly after the season ended. To be fair, they had time to really consider their options, knowing Woodson was already leaving at the end of the season.