MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Practice officially began Monday for coach Darian DeVries' West Virginia Mountaineers, which means they are still undefeated for the 2024-25 season.
 
And unless you are talking about the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, there is likely a 100% chance that the Mountaineers, and everybody else in the country for that matter, won't remain unbeaten by the end of the season.
 
So far, everything up to this point has pretty much gone according to plan. DeVries and his staff have built their roster from one returning player, not including football's Aden Tagaloa-Nelson, to 16, when you include recent additions Abraham Oyeadier and Haris Elezovic.
 
They've got more than a half dozen high-quality transfers, including a handful from power conference programs, a couple of really promising freshmen and what appears to be some good program guys who will develop and grow.
 
This summer's trip to Europe helped DeVries learn which guys like pasta and which guys don't, and a recent team outing to the local bowling alley helped him figure out which of his guys can roll strikes and which ones roll gutter balls.
 
But as far as how his guys are going to respond when they get a bad whistle?
 
Or who is going to fight through poor shooting nights?
 
Or who are the guys that are going to step up to the free throw line at crunch time and make critical shots?
 
Or who are the ones he can count on to get critical defensive stops or tough rebounds?
 
That's still TBD - to be determined.
 
What DeVries can do right now as a coach is to try and create situations during practice where he can begin to learn some of these things. He explained this earlier today during his 35-plus-minute visit with the media inside the Basketball Practice Facility.
 

"I'm the ref every day, and I give them plenty of bad calls," he joked. "They look at me and I say, 'Well, I didn't see it.' We try and put them in situations where it's stacked against them a little bit to create some (adversity). I think on every team, every single year, whether you've got a lot of returners or not, there is always a piece or two missing from every team. 
 
"In our case, we've got a lot of new guys, and the hardest thing for every team is you've got to learn how to win together and how do you do that? It's not always hitting 18 3s every night, so you have to figure out how to win on a night when you are 2-for-15 and getting some tough calls and you're on the road," he explained. "How do you find a way to win those games? Right now, it's just me giving them bad calls in practice."
 
The secret to success is figuring these things out before the games start counting. 
 
Everybody learns when they lose, but the really good ones in this business manage to learn about their guys and win at the same time. And you don't average 25 victories per season and win at least 20 games every single year you've coached college basketball like Darian DeVries has unless you are figuring these things out beforehand. 
 
Years ago, they used to call that coaching on your feet.
 
"We're getting there and that's a process as well," he explained. "A lot of times, that doesn't happen on Nov. 4 either. That's a season-long process of how do you fight through adversity and from a mental toughness standpoint, how do you figure out a way to win those games?
 
"It all matters," he continued. "Every single night you are going to learn something new about your team. Every single practice, I think you learn something new about your team, and it's just about continuing to make the steps that you need to be successful."
 
For instance, what's a good shot versus a bad shot?
 
"The ones that go in and the ones that don't," DeVries explained, giving a veteran coaching answer to a rookie question.
 
"I don't talk to our guys about shot selection," he continued. "I want our guys to be very aggressive. I want them to be confident and then if we need to pull them back a little bit, we will. The last thing I think you can do with a shooter and a scorer is having them looking over their shoulder. I want them to kind of figure it out on their own, and most of the time that happens.
 
"Guys figure out, 'When I haven't made the step-back 3 in like three months, maybe I shouldn't try that in the first game.' It kind of evolves from there. I want guys that can score to feel that they've got the green light to do that," he said.
 
During his coaching career, DeVries has been around positive coaches such as Dana Altman and Greg McDermott who have given their players a green light to shoot. That includes the scout team guys responsible for giving the regular players good looks during practice.
 
DeVries tries to instill the scout team mentality in his regular players.
 
"In 26 years, on the scout team or whatever jersey you put on, you see the practice tape, and they're just dominating practice and then you take that scout team jersey off and put the other uniform on them and it's like they get scared," DeVries said. "On the scout team, they get all this freedom, and they don't have to worry about getting yelled at. They can play the other team's best player, and they can play at a different level. That's how I want our guys to play offensively with that type of confidence."
 
However, DeVries admits there is a thin line between freedom and chaos.
 
"I tell our guys all the time, 'There is a great responsibility with that freedom. Make sure it doesn't become selfishly motivated freedom to where, all of a sudden, there are a lot of bad shots taken because it's your turn,'" he said.
 
"We have a lot of freedom, and a lot of guys are going to touch the ball. When we want to get a specific shot, we can dial up those, but in general, over the course of time, I just think our guys understand what they're good at and they play to their strengths as it evolves," he said.
 
In the same vein, DeVries believes it's important for his guys to be allowed the space to continue to grow during practices leading up to the games.
 
"I never want them to stop growing their game, particularly in practice," he said. "You can continue to work on things, but on game days, know which one is going to help us win and which one you are maybe not quite ready for yet."
 
This process is currently underway. The team will have 30 practices over the next 42 days before its season opener against Robert Morris inside the WVU Coliseum on Monday, Nov. 4.
 
WVU will be playing some difficult nonconference games leading into the start of Big 12 play in late December, including a three-day stretch in late November in the Bahamas that includes a game against Gonzaga, plus possible matchups against either Indiana or Louisville the second day, and either Arizona, Davidson, Oklahoma or Providence on the final day.
 
There are also contests on the nonconference slate against Massachusetts, Pitt and Georgetown to deal with, too.
 
"We've got a lot to do," DeVries said. "We feel like we've made a lot of progress from June until now, and certainly feel like there are more steps to take between now and (the opener)."