Pieces Falling Into Place With West Virginia Hoops Roster

The basketball roster is starting to come together for West Virginia.

It was quite the assignment for new head coach Darian DeVries considering that he was basically charged with building an entirely new roster when he took over in March.

The Mountaineers will return only one player from the 2024-25 roster in sophomore Ofri Naveh and he was limited to just 13.8 minutes per game which turned into just 2.6 points and 2.5 rebounds.

That means almost the entire production from last season’s team has departed either through graduation or the transfer portal with seven players leaving the program through the database.

The majority of those have already committed to other schools with point guard Kerr Kriisa to Kentucky, forward Patrick Suemnick to DePaul, guard Kobe Johnson to Saint Louis, forward Josiah Harris to Akron, guard Noah Farrakhan to Hampton and guard Seth Wilson to Akron.

As for the incoming players, DeVries and his coaching staff have been active in the transfer portal filling out the majority of the roster to date.

That started with two-time Missouri Valley Player of the Year Tucker DeVries. The son of the head coach, the versatile forward averaged 21.6 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists for the Bulldogs this past season and 18.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game the year before.

That is a good starting point for any roster as DeVries is an experienced option that obviously has played in the system and been successful. He is a piece to certainly build around and that’s exactly what DeVries has done so far with a mix of experienced and youthful talent.

On the experienced side, Oklahoma State point guard Javon Small will step into a major role as a facilitator and scorer next to DeVries. The Indiana native was one of the most sought-after point guards in the entire transfer portal and is a stat-stuffing option that can do it all.

An even bigger bonus is the fact that there won’t be any concerns about how it translates to the Big 12 because he has…

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Author : WV Sports

Publish date : 2024-06-12 13:05:28

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