File photo WVU and athletic director Wren Baker are once again searching for a new basketball coach after the departure of Darian DeVries to Indiana.

MORGANTOWN — It can be theorized that WVU athletic director Wren Baker lost men’s basketball coach Darian DeVries to Indiana after just one season because of tradition or national recognition.

To some degree, there may be some truth to that, as Indiana has five national championship banners hanging within Assembly Hall.

“The opportunity came along to possibly be the head coach at Indiana, a dream job for anyone, but especially for someone that grew up in the Midwest watching the old Big 8 and Big 10 basketball,” DeVries said during his introductory press conference. “The chance to lead one of the biggest brands in college basketball was something that I could not pass up.”

The heart of the matter lies in the checkbook, which was an unfortunate story Baker had to tell to West Virginia media on Wednesday, just hours after DeVries was introduced at Indiana.

“From a resource perspective, we are prepared to stretch what we have, but there are certainly people in college athletics who have more money,” Baker said.

Indiana’s financial resources — much of it gained through Big Ten TV contracts that pays each member school between $80-100 million annually — allowed the school to offer DeVries a reported six-year deal worth more than $30 million.

That dwarfs WVU’s contract with DeVries that was worth $15 million over five years.

“Do I think that was a factor?” Baker said. “If I’m being honest, yes.”

Baker said he had attempted to negotiate some better financial terms with DeVries, beginning long before anyone in the state had considered the possibility of Indiana going after him.

“I first talked to his agent in early February and made sure they knew we wanted to reward his success,” Baker said. “I sat down with him several times over the last few weeks to talk about his contract and his compensation and what we could do there.

“We talked about what we could do with revenue sharing and NIL opportunities. I think we had a really good shared vision of what we needed to do in order to continue to build the program.”

That shared vision broke off after DeVries accepted the Hoosier’s offer on Tuesday afternoon, and now Baker is conducting a third search over the course of three seasons for the WVU men’s program.

“I’m at peace that we were aggressive in trying to retain him,” Baker said. “Ultimately, I recognize it’s not my decision to make. He gets to make that. We wish him well.”

In additional efforts to retain DeVries, Baker said he made it clear that WVU wanted to make a counter offer, but the school was never given that chance.

“I made it clear to him that we would like a chance to counter if there was an offer that came from Indiana,” Baker said. “Just the way it unfolded, we didn’t get that chance. I made it clear that, within reason, we would do whatever it takes to keep him here and keep building on this program.”

In his heart, did Baker believe WVU’s limited budget — when compared to Big Ten and SEC schools — could compete with the money Indiana was throwing at DeVries.

“I think we could have competed,” Baker said. “We have had a lot of donors over the course of the last few weeks who were very interested in keeping Darian and continuing to build on what he was doing.

“Even since the (NCAA tournament) snub on Sunday, we’ve had some double back and say, ‘We want whatever we need to do to build a roster and keep him.’ I do think we could have made a competitive counter offer. What that would have ultimately done, I don’t know. I wanted the chance to do that and it just didn’t work out. He had the offer and I think he was pretty set that’s what he was going to do.”

The next move is again on Baker. He did not discuss any candidates on Wednesday, other than essentially ruling out the return of Bob Huggins.

He gave no timeline, but there was a hint that this could be a quick process to introduce the next coach.

“We went through this process a year ago,” he said. “While some of those candidates are off the board, there are probably a few new ones on the board. A lot of them we’ve already done deep, deep dives on.”

In terms of what will be owed to WVU, Baker confirmed the school will receive a buyout check, “In excess of $6 million dollars,” he said.

The final number will settle in around $6.15 million, which includes reimbursing WVU for the money it paid DeVries for moving costs incurred when he first came to Morgantown from Drake University last year. It also reimburses WVU for the money it paid to Drake to buy out DeVries’ contract with the Bulldogs.

“Collecting $6 million will help us make a transition to a new coach and help us with some other items,” Baker said.

Baker said the coaching search will include candidates with ties to WVU, but certainly wouldn’t be limited to just those coaches.

“I know there can be a knee-jerk reaction whenever you lose a coach after a year,” Baker said. “Human nature is to think we have to get someone who has a connection to here.

“I just think my job is to go out and get the best coach I can. You want to have coaches that other people covet and want to come after. The alternative to that is no one wants your coach, and that’s not very good.”

Note

Baker confirmed that WVU has already lost one player to the transfer portal. That player is freshman Jonathan Powell, who averaged 8.3 points and 3.1 rebounds in his first season.