The West Virginia Mountaineers seem to have landed one of the most coveted hires during the most recent college basketball coaching carousel.
WVU men's basketball parted ways with Darian DeVries last season, as the coach bolted for the head coaching gig that opened at Indiana after just one year in Morgantown. After seeing what DeVries cooked up in just one season at the helm, WVU fans were upset to see him go – but may have gotten the better end of the deal.
CBS Sports recently released the results from a poll where they asked over 100 college basketball coaches to name their top hire of the last coaching cycle, and the results seem to favor the Mountaineers. While Iowa's Ben McCollum was pegged by 25% of coaches polled as the top hire and Ross Hodge failed to make the list of six coaches who received over 5% of the votes, he was listed alongside Villanova's Kevin Willard and Utah's Alex Jensen as coaches outside of that top six that also received multiple votes as the best hire.
Who was the best coaching hire in men's college basketball this year? In @CBSSports' polling of nearly 100 coaches, the winner was @IowaHoops picking Ben McCollum to take over its program. https://t.co/BaHjU5aQUS
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) October 10, 2025
Interestingly enough, a name that does not show up as having received multiple votes is DeVries, whose hire has Indiana fans buzzing about the potential revival of the program's historic success, but apparently didn't make much of an impact among other coaches. DeVries and his son Tucker DeVries have found themselves in the spotlight again this week after a former WVU player alleged that Tucker DeVries wasn't actually injured when he sat out and took a medical redshirt last season.
Hodge seems to be more than a suitable replacement, however, and has gotten plenty of praise from other Division 1 coaches before this poll. Mountaineer fans will be eagerly awaiting this season to start to see what he'll bring to the program.