BLOOMINGTON, IN – For the first time in 14 years, when an Indiana basketball coach faced his first question about the Kentucky series, he didn’t have to deflect.
Darian DeVries is the first man in IU’s head job since Tom Crean to inherit a series with Kentucky, after the longtime intrastate rivalry was put back on the schedule by Mike Woodson and John Calipari, two old friends who will now never coach in the rivalry they helped reignite.
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Asked during a pregame news conference Thursday for his intentions regarding Indiana’s annual meeting with the Wildcats — which hasn’t been played in the regular season since 2011 — DeVries strenuously endorsed its return to the schedule.
“I think it’s a great series,” he said. “I hope we can continue this forever. This is the first year of a four-game stretch. I think it’s great for both programs. I think it’s great for college basketball.”
Words that will win him a fair few friends in southern Indiana. It’s been a while since IU-Kentucky didn’t feel overly political.
Imagine, then, what victory Saturday night in Lexington would do. For DeVries, this is the kind of opportunity too few of his predecessors seized, one he should not pass up.
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DeVries and the Hoosiers travel to Rupp Arena for a primetime showdown with a team trying to pull itself out of a dive. Kentucky has lost every high-major game it’s played so far this season, only once in four tries having allowed fewer than 83 points.
The Wildcats’ most recent meaningful matchup came in a de facto home atmosphere in Nashville against Gonzaga, that atmosphere turning toxic as Kentucky scored just 20 first-half points and lost by 35.
“The games they’ve played well, they’ve scored easily,” DeVries said. “The games they’ve struggled, they just haven’t shot it.”
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The calls for Mark Pope’s job that followed are plainly premature. And there’s every chance, in time, he turns Kentucky back into a tournament team and an SEC contender this winter.
But Indiana — admittedly imperfect itself — probably could not have picked a more ideal time to return to Rupp Arena for the first time in 15 years. A team still in search of a quality nonconference win itself cannot turn this opportunity down.
The Hoosiers endured their own rocky patch last week, losing at Minnesota before an ugly start undercut them in Indianapolis against Louisville.
DeVries said IU has been focused on improving from lessons learned in those games, chiefly among them crisper offensive execution.
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“I thought the Minnesota game for us offensively was something we had to learn from. It wasn’t just the movement, it’s the combination of everything we had going, being a little stagnant,” he said. “It was more about, how do we set better screens? How do we set up those screens? For both Lamar (Wilkerson) and Tucker (DeVries).”
That emphasis paid dividends during a midweek demolition of Penn State that saw Wilkerson score an Assembly Hall-record 44 points in just 24 minutes. DeVries knows Kentucky at Rupp will be more challenging.
Indiana has not won in Lexington against Kentucky since 1988, the same year — fans pointed out this week — the Hoosiers last defeated Ohio State football, before last weekend’s Big Ten championship game.
That’s a bit of a misnomer. Soon after that win, the series moved largely to its neutral-site format between Indianapolis and Louisville, and while IU has not beaten Kentucky at Rupp Arena in 37 years, the two teams have played there just three times since.
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Saturday still stands as a meaningful opportunity, for Indiana to secure a valuable resume-building win, and for DeVries to score meaningful points with his fanbase at the first available opportunity.
Too many of his predecessors have let similar moments pass them by, early in their tenures, or failed to build on ones they seized. DeVries can only take care of the second if he starts by addressing the first.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Indiana, Kentucky reignite college basketball series, rivalry
