A year ago, Darian DeVries and his Drake men’s basketball team traveled to Spain for a pair of exhibition games. The Bulldogs had a roster filled with first-year players, and everything was working in the first game until nothing worked near the finish. 

“We got beat in the first game,” DeVries remembered. “We were up 15 with 10 minutes to go, and we played the young guys. It was the greatest thing ever. They had to finish it out. Whether we won or lost wasn’t the point. The point was we were in a situation they were going to see, and we got an opportunity to see how they responded.”

The Bulldogs weren’t doomed. They finished 28-7, won the Missouri Valley Conference tournament and played in the CAA Tournament for the third time in four years. DeVries and his first West Virginia team, one that’s also filled with first years players, are headed to Italy to play a three-game exhibition tour against a club team from Lithuania and two youth academy teams from Italy. None of that matters to DeVries.