IU Basketball transfer portal spotlight: Tucker DeVries

IU basketball has added 10 players this spring from the transfer portal. Player by player, we’ll take a look at each addition in our “transfer portal spotlight” series.

Up first: Tucker DeVries

Bio: 6-foot-7, 220-pound senior wing from Waukee, Iowa

Previous schools: Drake (2021-2024, three seasons) and West Virginia (2024-25 season)

Career stats: 17.7 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.2 steals in 32.9 minutes per game. DeVries is a career 43.5 percent shooter from the field, a 36.7 percent 3-point shooter and an 81.3 percent free-throw shooter.

Career accolades: MVC freshman of the year (2021-22), two-time MVC conference player of the year (2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons) and two-time MVC tournament most outstanding player (2023, 2024)

Recruitment background

The son of Indiana coach Darian DeVries, Tucker DeVries followed his father to Bloomington for his final season of eligibility. While IU has not officially announced his signing, DeVries will be a centerpiece of Indiana’s rotation next season and the most accomplished player on the roster entering the season.

An upper-body injury ended his season after eight games as a Mountaineer and he will have one season of eligibility as a Hoosier once approved by the NCAA for a medical hardship waiver. He will turn 23 next season.

Notes on his game

Known as a premier perimeter shooter, DeVries has made 3-point shots at a high volume since his freshman season at Drake.

Over 112 career games, he is 276-for-752 from the perimeter for an average of nearly 2.5 made 3-pointers per game. Last season, he buried eight 3-pointers in an 83-76 win against Arizona in the Battle 4 Atlantis third-place game.

DeVries excels at moving without the ball, getting to his spots and connecting when he has any space to get his shot off. He can shoot off the catch or off the dribble.

In addition to his scoring ability, DeVries also stuffed the stat sheet in other areas, particularly in his junior season at Drake (2023-24). That season, he averaged 6.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. In MVC play, he had the 15th best assist rate in the league and 11th best defensive rebounding percentage.

While it was a limited sample size, DeVries shot just 30 percent inside the 3-point line in eight games for the Mountaineers. He was 9-for-30 on 2s.

His perimeter shooting is clearly his best tool as a player and he’ll have a chance to showcase the other aspects of his game on one of the biggest stages in the country, the Big Ten, next winter. He has been mentioned in the past as a potential NBA draft pick, but he’ll need to show he can return to 100 percent health to reestablish his profile for the next level.

Scouting report

“You wouldn’t necessarily know it from his 36.7 career percentage from behind the arc, but DeVries is one of the most prolific shooters in college basketball. Through 8 games at West Virginia last year, he knocked down 47% of his attempts, showing not just elite floor-spacing, but also the ability to be a movement shooter off screens. Of course, the fact that he played 8 games is the major concern. Availability was rarely a factor at Drake, where he was the two-time Missouri Valley Player of the Year, and yet he was often banged up and playing through various injuries, including one to his shoulder in his junior season. In addition to his three-point shooting, DeVries is comfortable in the mid-post and mid-range areas, sometimes relying on little fade-aways to get his shot off over contesting defenders. He’s not an especially burst athlete, although the extent to which his health has impacted that is unknown. Defensively, he’s smart enough to be in all the right spots, but can be limited by footspeed in various matchups.” – Adam Finkelstein, 247Sports

“DeVries played for his dad, Darian, at Drake before following him to West Virginia and now to Indiana. A two-time Missouri Valley player of the year, he’s an elite shooter off movement who can create shots from all three levels. He takes about seven 3s per game, and while he only hits them at a 37 percent clip, that’s because he takes some truly difficult ones off all sorts of intricate action within this offense. He also passes extremely well. His feet can be a bit slow on defense, a trait that could be exploited in the Big Ten. Still, expect him to be one of the best players in the league next season even coming off the injury that held him out for all but eight games this year.” – Sam Vecenie, The Athletic

Tucker DeVries highlights

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