Indiana basketball might be the traditional headliner in Bloomington, but right now, it’s the football team that’s soaking up the spotlight-and for good reason. The Hoosiers just capped off a perfect 16-0 season with their first-ever national championship, and the ripple effects are being felt well beyond Memorial Stadium.
Basketball head coach Darian DeVries made sure to shine a light on that achievement during his recent press conference, calling the football team’s run “incredible” and offering his full-throated congratulations.
“I want to start off by congratulating the football team on being national champs,” DeVries said. “What an incredible season that was.
It was so much fun to watch them compete all year and to finish it off the way they did was very fitting. Again, congratulations.
What an awesome, awesome deal.”
It’s not just a feel-good story. DeVries sees real benefits from the football program’s rise, especially when it comes to recruiting.
Indiana used to be a school where football filled the gap between basketball seasons. That narrative’s flipped under Curt Cignetti.
Now, Indiana is a year-round destination for high-level athletics-and that kind of national exposure is a game-changer.
“I think it’s been awesome, not only for the football program but for all of athletics and our school and the exposure that it brings,” DeVries said. “Even throughout the fall, being able to bring recruits in and having that atmosphere at the football games that we have-it only adds to our ability to recruit and have good recruiting weekends. I think it’s awesome all the way around, and I’m excited about what it does for our program as well.”
DeVries is still relatively new to the scene-he took over the Hoosiers last March-so this football surge is something he’s experiencing for the first time. So too is the intensity of the Indiana-Purdue rivalry. But it hasn’t taken him long to understand what it means.
“I think it’s something you understand from your first day on the job,” DeVries said. “When you’re around college sports, you understand all the different rivalries across the country, and there are a lot of good ones. This is a pretty special rivalry, and I’m really excited for my first opportunity-and our team’s first opportunity-to be a part of it.”
That opportunity comes Tuesday night in Bloomington, with tipoff set for 9 p.m. It’s DeVries’ first taste of the in-state showdown, but he’s no stranger to Purdue head coach Matt Painter.
Their paths crossed years ago when DeVries was an assistant at Creighton and Painter was leading Southern Illinois. Since then, DeVries has watched Painter evolve into one of the most respected tacticians in the country.
“I’ve followed him for a long time and he does such a great job,” DeVries said. “They used to be all defense (at Purdue) and their offense maybe lacked.
But now they are elite, elite on offense and they run so much stuff. From a coach-to-coach standpoint, watching him continue to evolve on both ends of the floor-he does a terrific job with everything.”
Purdue came into the season as the preseason No. 1 and stayed in the top six for most of the year before hitting a recent skid, dropping back-to-back games at UCLA and at home against Illinois. They’re now ranked No. 12 in the latest AP poll, but that hasn’t changed DeVries’ view of the Boilermakers.
“They’ve got really good players across the board and they all understand their roles,” he said. “It starts with Smith, and he’s as good as I’ve seen out there. All of their parts really fit together.”
That “Smith” is Braden Smith, Purdue’s standout point guard and a legitimate Player of the Year candidate. His ability to dissect defenses with late-decision passes has turned Purdue’s offense into a puzzle few teams have solved.
“It’s incredibly difficult (to prepare for), and watching them, everybody else finds it pretty difficult too,” DeVries added. “(Smith) just has that unique knack for making that late decision-making pass and he really stretches your defense in every way possible.”
As for Indiana, the Hoosiers are 13-7 overall and 4-5 in the Big Ten. After a strong start at home-winning their first 10-they’ve stumbled recently, dropping back-to-back games in Bloomington to Nebraska and Iowa. Purdue, meanwhile, sits at 17-3 and 7-2 in conference play.
But in rivalry games like this, records tend to take a backseat. For DeVries and his squad, it’s not just another game-it’s a chance to step into one of college basketball’s most storied matchups and make a statement.
And with the whole athletic department riding high off a national title, the energy in Bloomington is already electric. Tuesday night should be no different.