LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It's less than 19 weeks until the start of the next college basketball season, but I don't see any joy or benefit in waiting.
Not after new Indiana University head coach Darian DeVries agreed to a sit-down interview at his office in Cook Hall in Bloomington, Indiana, last week to discuss his totally rebuilt roster, his preferred style of basketball and his thoughts on having both Kentucky and Louisville on his first schedule as he replaces Mike Woodson.
DeVries has been with his players for several weeks. As IU awaits word on the eligibility waivers requested by guards Luke Goode and Anthony Leal, the Hoosiers added a 12th player: Aleksa Ristic, a 19-year-old, 6-foot-4-inch guard from Serbia.
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IU will benefit from extra practice time before the Hoosiers depart for a three-game exhibition tour in Puerto Rico in early August.
The interview lasted more than 30 minutes. I'll share five lightly edited answers from DeVries to questions about his first three months in Bloomington.
Q: What have been major takeaways from the first weeks of practice as you watch the roster come together?
DeVries: "I've really liked (what I've seen). When you work through the portal, it's a lot of short relationships.
"Sometimes you have a few that maybe we knew for a long time, but now you get them all here, it's like, now you figure out what you really have, and how those pieces all fit together.
"I've been really pleased with the approach the group has had, for a group of guys that don't know each other very well. They're coming in, and everybody's got a new role, and maybe they're all wondering what their expectation level is for this team. And coaches that are trying to figure it out.
"I think they've done a really good job of just buying into whatever we need to do to try to get better individually and as a team.
"I like their unselfishness a lot. I think they've really shared the ball well, which usually when you have a new team, it starts off the opposite, because everybody's trying to establish their role. And they've done a really good job of being unselfish.
"I like some of the versatility on the offensive end. I think we have multiple guys that can really shoot it, which should allow us to get some good floor spacing offensively.
"Then defensively, I think it's going to have to be a really connected group in terms of just making sure that they're always covering for one another.
"We don't have great rim protection (size), but I do think we have guys that really understand how to wall up, how to perform verticality and stuff. I think we can protect each other enough in that regard."
Q: You've got several guys you're familiar with, like your son, Tucker, and Conor Enright, a guard who played for you at Drake. But the others are new. What habits have you stressed and what are your non-negotiables?
DeVries: "It's hard those first few weeks, because every word you say, it's like a foreign language.
"Sometimes every drill, every action that you do, the number one thing I told them is it just starts with effort.
"Like, I don't care if you don't understand what we're doing, just give great effort, even if it's wrong, and then we can work our way backwards to doing it right later.
"But just start with great effort, great energy, great enthusiasm, because that's all kind of contagious stuff. Then the technique of it all, we can build those habits as we go. I wanted that to be kind of their primary focus.
"The two things that we talk about in winning are just defensive rebounding and not turning the ball over.
"Those are two things from just a schematic standpoint that we need to be elite at -- those two things.
"Then the rest of the stuff, making and missing shots, well, you can survive (those) nights if you're still good at those two things.
"Those are the priorities we want them to carry throughout summer, fall and as we get into games."
Q: The Big Ten has traditionally been a power league with full-sized, large-bodied players. IU has one player, Reed Bailey, a transfer from Davidson, who is taller than 6-9. You'll be smaller than many teams. Does that mean they'll have to chase your guys on the perimeter as you find ways to defend the post?
DeVries: "Yeah, I think like everything on every team, there's some give and take of like, 'Hey, we're going to be we're really good here. Maybe we have a little bit of a hole here that we have to cover for.'
"So it's like, how do you offset some of your weaknesses, and how do you emphasize some of your strengths?
"I think from our standpoint, on the offensive end, you take a Reed (Bailey), a Tucker (DeVries), a Lamar (Wilkerson, an IU guard who transferred from Sam Houston) and some of those guys, we have the ability to really space people and have them have to chase us.
"On the defensive end, it goes back to what we talked about initially, like we just have to be elite level at fighting, having some toughness and being scrappy to offset that.
"Now, once in a while, are you going to get overwhelmed on a rebound? Sure, that's going to be part of it. But hopefully we can get a couple of those back on the other end to offset anything that you give up on that defensive end.
"But I just tell guys all the time, 'I don't care about size as much, it's more about your willingness to fight and be tough and do things to offset any any of that lack of size."
Q: Kentucky returns to the IU schedule more than a decade after John Calipari scuttled the long, historic series. Four games are on that contract, starting with one in Lexington Dec. 13. One week before that, IU will meet Louisville in Indianapolis. Do you want to continue the UK series and would you like to play Louisville?
DeVries: "I love the series. I love all those games that I think are what college basketball is all about.
"From a fan perspective. I think it's great for our teams. I think it's great for college basketball. So I love the series. I'm glad and obviously fortunate to be walking into it … it's a great game and a great challenge …
"… (playing marquee teams like Louisville and Marquette, also on IU's schedule this season) will be really good for us. We'll continue to pursue that as we're building out into next year (26-27 schedule). Some of those opportunities are starting to take shape."
Q: The last two IU men's basketball coaches only lasted four seasons before they were fired because they failed to meet the high expectations this program has generally failed to meet since Bob Knight departed 25 years ago. How do you deal with outside expectations and what are your expectations for Indiana basketball?
DeVries: "I've said this often: My expectations are going to be pretty high themselves, in terms of, we want to win every night we step out there. That's our goal.
"I'm not going to feel more from that level (from fans and media). I'm gonna have enough internally of wanting to make sure that every night we step out there that we're doing everything we can to win that game from a preparation standpoint, a work standpoint.
"Those are the controllables that we have. We'll do everything we can to make sure that we put everything into it every single night, from just a game prep, film study, whatever it may be, to try to give us the best chance to win."
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