'Establish an identity': The goal is clear for Indiana during summer workouts

After the first three months that saw little rest for Darian DeVries, a critical first offseason and summer arrived. While the first 90 days was about building the roster, the next 90 days was about one thing — making sure an identity was built and his vision became a reality on the floor for Indiana.

DeVries had a blank canvas to build his team. With zero returning players and just one incoming recruit, an entire roster had to be rebuilt. While this wasn’t the first time he has flipped a roster, DeVries knew the first few weeks were going to be important to set the foundation for what he wanted at Indiana.

The easy part? He knew that if someone was going to commit, they were committing to the vision, with nothing clear to show in terms of teammates they’d be playing with or an exact system that would be in place.

“One of the advantages of it is everyone you’re recruiting is bought in to what your vision is in things and you aren’t trying to convince someone returning in your vision. So that part, there’s some benefit there,” DeVries said at the Huber’s Winery NIL event last moth. “The down side is everyone on the roster is new and the familiarity with the university, town, is starting from scratch. The biggest thing is getting them all together and on the same page … you don’t have anything else to go on — especially in the portal, there weren’t long recruitments. So it’s about figuring things out as we go, and they’re figuring us out too.”

So as Indiana turns the page into the back half of its first month of summer workouts, the chemistry is slowly coming together, the relationships are beginning to form and the team is coming together to form a collective identity.

“I think it’s establish an identity of who we want to be and how we want to play,” Said DeVries of his goal this summer on the ‘College Hoops Today Podcast’ with Jon Rothstein. “What does that look like on a day to day basis? I don’t get too wrapped up in predictions, we’re really focused on just making that process right and if that process is right the wins will come.”

Long before that identity can be formed, however, is making sure the incoming players fit. Fit to your identity as a coach and fit to the style you want to play on the floor.

In today’s world of the transfer portal and rankings, it’s easy to get caught in the ‘high profile’ names and ‘stars’. What DeVries did, was not the norm. He brought in just three players who had played a single minute in high major basketball programs — none of which finished the season.

His son Tucker DeVries played just eight games at West Virginia before an injury cut his season short. Conor Enright missed the last month and a half with an injury at DePaul. And, Sam Alexis saw a sprained ankle in mid-February take him out of the rotation in the back half of the season.

Trending: How Darian DeVries methodically rebuilt Indiana through the transfer portal

Everyone else? Mid major players. But players who fit what the ultimate identity of this team would be.

“The biggest challenge is we want to make sure that everybody we’re bringing in is what we want not only for this year but for long term in terms of establishing who we want to be, what we want that to look like, and making sure they can complement each other on the floor, off the floor,” DeVries said in May. “Then, you’re also putting the staff together simultaneously. We’re trying to balance both as you’re going through it, but at the same time, not take any shortcuts. We want to make sure we’re doing this right from Day One. If it takes a little longer, then it takes a little longer. We try to do it as quickly as we can but also be very smart and calculated about it.

“We want guys that are about the right things, good team guys, got a good feel, IQ and skill level that we look for. Does it fit, how we want the roster to look like? We feel like we’re in a good place with a lot of the guys we’re recruiting and very excited about that.”

After a ‘calculated’ step one of building the roster came together like he wanted, Indiana head coach Darian DeVries is on to the most important step of the offseason.

While he’s excited about the potential that is in front of them, he understands nothing that is in the future is attainable unless the process is fine-tuned and sharpened in the upcoming summer months.

“Our sole focus — put a roster together and how we get into workouts, make sure we are day to day in tune with the process and how we want to look like,” DeVries told Rothstein. “if we do that, the success will come.”

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