Darian DeVries is a good college coach. At Indiana, is that enough?

Initial thoughts on the Hoosiers' latest hope

Athletic directors always say the same thing about their new hires. They never tell you what they’re really thinking.

No one ever says: “Hey, look, he wasn’t the first choice, but there are a lot of good coaches out there and, you know, maybe he’s one of them!” No one is ever flawed but intriguing, unproven but promising.

Everyone is the right guy to take this program forward. Everyone has the ideal combination of leadership and acumen. Everyone knows how to build the winning culture our fans demand. Everyone has the respect of the coaching fraternity. Everyone crushes the interview.

An athletic director — in this case Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson — is never going to come right out and say, for example, that the basketball program he is hiring for has built an immense reservoir of NIL cash to dole out to prospects and transfers, to the point that any roster should generally look how its coach wants it to look, and so what you’re solving for is not so much elite salesmanship, proven high-major success or messianic fervor, but baseline coaching competence. You want someone who can optimize any stack of raw materials put in front of him. The materials should always be pretty good.

Indiana is doing that again. If you strapped Dolson to a chair and gave him truth serum, that is what he would tell you:

We don’t need a messiah. We just need a guy who can coach.

Darian DeVries should be that guy.