Darian DeVries walked around the scorer’s table to where the Drake Bulldogs fans were celebrating in the Enterprise Center in St. Louis on Sunday and silently gestured for his younger brother to come down to the first row. Jared DeVries leaned over the railing and laid his head on Darian’s shoulder, wrapping huge arms around the coach of the Bulldogs. Jared, a former NFL defensive lineman, sobbed out loud, audible above the tumult in the arena, his body heaving.
Darian is a stoic, but he teared up as well. Jamie DeVries, Jared’s wife, was crying. Moments earlier, Drake’s star player and Darian’s son, Tucker DeVries, had broken into tears.
The emotions were hitting hard for the DeVries family, a collision of joy and sadness. Winning the Missouri Valley Conference tournament in thrilling fashion over the Indiana State Sycamores and clinching an NCAA bid was a moment to rejoice, but also a moment to remember who wasn’t there for the first time.
Easton DeVries, son of Jared and Jamie, cousin of Tucker, nephew of Darian, died July 28 at age 19 after a lifetime congenital heart condition. He had always been here in St. Louis at Arch Madness—this was a DeVries family thing, a rite of March. When Darian was an assistant coach with the Creighton Bluejays, Easton; his brother, Jaylen; and Tucker ran around the arena in Bluejays jerseys. Then when Darian became the head coach at Drake and Tucker became the Bulldogs’ best player, the jerseys changed.
“For our family, this is a holiday,” Jamie DeVries says. “It always has been. The boys have been doing this together since they were babies.”
Now, Easton is gone and deeply missed.
“Seeing his family here—this is a tournament he’s been to a lot of times with me as a fan, cheering me on,” Tucker DeVries says. “For him not to be here, it kind of hit home.”
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This was not something the DeVries family had talked about publicly. And if you only watched the game, and not the sobbing aftermath, you would not have any idea about their tragic backstory.
Jared DeVries, who played 11 years for the Detroit Lions, was a looming energy presence in one section behind the Drake bench. He was standing and cheering with gusto for the Bulldogs nearly the entire game while his wife was doing the same one section over. Jared danced in his seat to music during timeouts, made comical gestures to Jamie and appeared to be having the time of his life.
But when it was over, he broke down. He wiped his eyes repeatedly with a handkerchief, but the tears kept coming. He watched the Missouri Valley’s version of “One Shining Moment” as it saluted the Bulldogs, and he cried throughout. After embracing his brother, he was emotionally spent and headed upstairs to the arena concourse.
“We had to send him to the bathroom,” Jamie joked, wiping her eyes.
Easton surely would have loved the performance his cousin put on Sunday. Tucker, the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, scored 27 points to go along with seven rebounds and five assists. He helped stake Drake to a 13-point lead at halftime, hit a three to expand the lead to a seemingly insurmountable 18 with 10 minutes left … and then came to the rescue when it all threatened to fall apart in the final minutes.
When the game was on the verge of becoming a blowout, Indiana State wouldn’t let it happen. The Sycamores have won 28 games this season with one of the most explosive offenses in college basketball, and they unleashed a barrage that brought them back.
In exactly six minutes of game time, Indiana State went from 18 down to one point up, 73-72. Guard Isaiah Swope, scoreless in the first half, became unstoppable and finished the game with 19. When he gave ISU the lead on a four-point play with 4:08 left, everyone in the arena at that point would have been forgiven for thinking the Sycamores would simply keep on going and win their first MVC tournament title since 2011.
But Drake dug back in. Down 76-74, Tucker DeVries drove into the lane from the wing for one of his patented fallaway jumpers to tie it. A couple of possessions later, with Indiana State understandably expecting DeVries to attack again, he saw the Sycamores shading off guard Conor Enright and fired him a pass on the wing for the go-ahead three-pointer. Drake just had to manage the final possessions after that to walk off with an 84-80 triumph for its second straight Arch Madness title.
For Indiana State (28–6), there was no shame in losing a Valley classic. If there is any justice in the world, the Sycamores are still an NCAA men’s tournament team—their NCAA NET rating was 26 on Sunday before the game, and it’s hard to imagine a top-30 team in the NCAA’s own metrics being left out of the Big Dance. Still, this will be an anxious week of waiting to know for sure for Josh Schertz and his program.
“It would be a shame to do all that [the Sycamores] did and have them put in someone who’s 18–15,” Schertz says.
Related: Indiana State and Drake Both Deserve NCAA Men’s Tournament Bids
“Watch them,” Darian DeVries says. “Find me better teams than them. … They belong in the NCAA tournament.”
Drake, also 28–6, tied the school record for most wins in a season. And the Bulldogs have done it with a younger, different cast than the team that went dancing last year. Guard Atin Wright transferred in from Cal State–Northridge, guard Kevin Overton is a freshman, and sophomore Enright is a first-year starter after coming off of the bench in a limited role last season.
The two mainstays are mountainous senior big man Darnell Brodie and DeVries. Darian DeVries has won 20 games in all six seasons as the Drake coach, but his program has taken an extra step forward since his son came onboard.
“It’s really special,” Tucker DeVries says of playing for his father. “I think five or 10 years from now we’ll really appreciate [it], but for now we’re just trying to enjoy the moment.”
It was an unexpectedly poignant moment Sunday. The reasons were not overtly clear to the outside world, but one look at the faces of the DeVries family hinted at the emotions bubbling to the surface. Easton DeVries was missing and was dearly missed. But he was present in spirit.
“We have an angel, and we all felt it,” Jamie DeVries says. “He was definitely our No. 1 cheerleader today.”
