Q&A With Darian Devries at IU’s Annual Huber’s Winery Event

Indiana Athletics held its annual Huber’s Winery event to raise money, and Indiana basketball coach Darian Devries was generous enough to answer some questions about the Indiana roster and its scheduling philosophy.

First, Devries was asked about his first impressions of Bryce Lindsay and Jaedon Mustaf, now that they are officially signed as Hoosiers.

“Yeah, I think number one thing is they’re they’re both uber competitive. That’s the thing that I think stood out the most when you get a chance to talk to them. I think you’ll see it, and they’re very confident but humble in what they do.”

Devries shouts out how Lindsay and Mustaf are very competitive and confident in their roles, while also being humble and team players. Lindsay is coming off two very productive years with Villanova and James Madison, where he started as the two-guard. He will be a key piece to Indiana’s success on the court next to Notre Dame transfer point guard Marcus Burton.

Mustaf will likely be a key bench piece to Indiana, as he looks to continue to improve as a player in his junior season. If Devries is correct, these two guards could bring a competitive edge to Indiana that it couldn’t always muster in the late stages of last season.

The build of the 2026-27 team is significantly different than last year’s team, and Devries was asked if he changed the philosophy at all this season.

“I don’t think the philosophy changes. I think you utilize your components, try to play uh to their strengths, but we’re still going to you know spread the floor, and you know do all those things, but we’ll just have more versatility in what we may be able to do and focus on. So we’ll still be heavy on threes, but now we have more guys that can get paint touches, more guys that we can put into the post.”

Indiana will still rely heavily on three-point production, as modern college basketball demands, but it will work on having more of an interior presence than in the past. Samet Yigitoglu will be a key contributor as the starting center of this team. At 7’2″, he can simply do more than Sam Alexis could last season. Devries keeps his philosophy the same, while putting players on the roster who can perform this style better than last year’s team could.

Devries was asked about his strategy when scheduling non-conference opponents.

“I think the non-conference schedule will have some high-quality opponents in there that will be great for us or good early-season tests.”

Devries prioritizes these non-conference games so that his team will be ready for the 20-game conference slate. The Big Ten Conference was the premier conference in college hoops last season, and he knows that it will be challenging to get wins in conference play, so he is giving his team the best chance to be prepared for conference play.

Indiana basketball disappointed last season, but Devries has clearly learned from his errors of last season when building his team. Yigitoglu (or Big Yig as I am nicknaming him) was brought up, and Devries jokingly said in response to how he could impact the game, “Hopefully with 15 and 10.”

While that was slightly a joke, rebounding presented itself as a main struggle for Indiana last season, and even if Devries can stay light-hearted about it, I love that he has clearly made a solution to the problem with the Turkish big man.

This next iteration of Indiana basketball excites me, as I enjoy that Devries is attempting a modern approach to basketball, but retracing his steps a little bit when grabbing a big man like Yigitoglu. He also grabbed Aiden Sherrell, who will rebound strongly, while also being able to stretch the court. Overall, it feels like Devries is saying the right things to give Hoosier fans some hope for next season.