INDIANA UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 17, 2025

Darian DeVries

Postgame Media Conference

Indiana - 107, Marian - 46

Q. Just the way you all played, you played fast, hit a lot of 3s, had I think 27 assists. How much of that brand of ball is what you hoped for offensively?

DARIAN DEVRIES: I was really happy tonight. It's the way we've been practicing. You just never know when you get on game night whether that will continue, that unselfishness, the ball movement. I thought the guys did a great job really all night moving the ball, sharing the ball, take what the defense gave us.

And we have a lot of guys that can shoot it. I thought we had great distribution of 3s as well. So offensively I was excited. The assists, I think it was 19 at the half to 24 made field goals, something like that. That's a team that's sharing the ball.

Q. Feels like we ask you about him a lot, I think at one point Trent was 8-for-8 from the floor, finishes with 23 points. How do you see him, I guess, building on these performances, whether it's practices in the summer, what he was doing in Puerto Rico, now, kind of carrying it into the fall? Especially as a freshman, how do you see him stack those performances, that growth, one on top of the other?

DARIAN DEVRIES: I love what Trent's doing. He's really fitting in well. He works hard at it. He puts a lot of time into it. Spent a ton of time on his shot this summer. And catch-and-shoots and shooting on the move a little bit, continuing to be one of our better cutters that we have as well.

And then he's a good rebounder. So I'm really excited about the things he's doing. And he continues to grow and get better every day.

He's also in a role where he can kind of fit in and have a little bit of the pressure taken off by some of the seniors. He can come in just play and be relaxed and do his thing. But he had a great night tonight. And we're looking forward to seeing what he'll continue to grow into.

Q. Tucker scored at all three levels tonight -- five 3s out of seven shots. What did you like out of him after a slow start in Puerto Rico tonight?

DARIAN DEVRIES: I thought he did a good job kind of just playing. And that's what I think he has -- one of his better qualities, I think, is just his feel and his IQ and his ability to kind of play off defenses.

We rely on a lot with some of his play making as well, coming off of ball screens and things. And also being able to utilize him on the move. I thought he had a nice, solid floor game tonight.

Q. Tucker, has he always been a vocal leader? Is he embracing more now? The last two years, kind of been in that role guys, never had guys who played with you; he's the only one. Has he embraced that, and what kind of growth have you seen him be a leader on the floor?

DARIAN DEVRIES: He's always been a really good leader. As he's gotten older he's become more vocal with it as well. For this group, especially when everybody's new, and he's the one guy that understands everything we're running, whether it's drills or plays or whatever.

So really challenged him to kind of be that guy because he's got to be the one who tells people, him and Conor Enright as well. His vocal leadership has really gotten stronger and stronger over the years.

Q. One of the things Trent told me over the summer was he wanted to learn from Tucker, that he looked at Tucker's game and said I want a lot of that in my game. How much of that is happening, and how much can that help Trent's overall development?

DARIAN DEVRIES: I think it's always great when you get an incoming freshman that has a guy that can work off of one another, teach each other a little bit the tricks of the game, if you will, just how to best get yourself open, cutting, that type of stuff.

Trent is one of those guys that absorb learning and teaching and coaching too. That's why his upside is really good because he cares. It's important to him, and he works at it.

Q. Sam obviously got a double-double tonight. Just your thoughts on him what he can bring this season?

DARIAN DEVRIES: Sam gives us that physicality. And we don't have a lot of big, girthy guys, especially on the interior. He's one of the guys that does bring some of that physical presence, some of that shot blocking.

I like the way we can utilize both of them, either together or separately. They kind of give a different kind of 1-2 punch with him and Reed. We can play them together, play them separate. I like Sam's abilities. We can throw it in there and he can get a basket every now and again.

Q. More on Trent, when we were here a few weeks he said you called him basically on your first night on the job, trying to get him to keep his commitment here. What was about it about him that you still wanted to coach and be around it, and what do you remember about that phone call?

DARIAN DEVRIES: I remember he was one of the very first calls right away that night. But just felt like it was someone, hey, it's a local kid. He wants to be at Indiana, it's important to him and he's a good player.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Let's keep that one. And I know he was excited about it. We were certainly excited about it. It's great to have him.

Q. You talked about the ball movement your team showed before. I think 27 assists on 39 made field goals tonight and only 10 turnovers. How pleased are you with the way your team has gelled in that way on the court so far early on?

DARIAN DEVRIES: Yeah, it's been really good. And again the challenges will continue to grow as we play more and more games. But even the other day in practice, we had 31 assists and three turnovers. I've never had that. That's in 5-on-5 play. But I've never had that as a coach.

So some of that is just as we begin to see longer and bigger bodies and more athleticism, we're going to have to make some adjustments to that.

But these guys really understand how to play. We talk about playing off of two feet, making sure that you can still be aggressive, but let's make the right plays at the end of the night. I like how these guys have really adapted to the way we want them to play offense.

Q. When you get up 20, 30 points like tonight against an overmatched team, how hard is it to keep the team focused on executing and going kind of through the process of getting better, even though it's a blow out and you'll probably win easily?

DARIAN DEVRIES: Exhibition games are especially are really challenging we know it's not counting for anything. We're just working on ourselves. That was a big thing leading up to the game and every timeout is just focused on us, let's make sure that we continue to be sound defensively.

Sometimes you can get a little bit too aggressive when you have the ability to go out and maybe make plays and stuff. We wanted our defense to stay sound behind the ball. Get (indiscernible) the ball, make sure we're good behind it, that we're giving our guys protection, like we work on, and not get away from all our principles and things.

A lot of that came from being in Puerto Rico. We learned a lot kind of some of the mistakes we made defensively when we were there. And we were able to really clean a lot of that stuff up because of that opportunity.