Tucker DeVries, Conor Enright offer continuity as Indiana embarks on 2025 rebuild

For everyone else in the Indiana basketball locker room, everything is brand new.

New coach, new teammates, new terminology, new system. But for Tucker DeVries and Conor Enright, it’s all a bit of deja vu.

While the rest of the 2025 Hoosiers are scribbling notes and asking questions, DeVries and Enright are the only two players in Assembly Hall who already speak the language of Darian DeVries basketball.

They’ve lived it. Breathed it. Won with it. They’re not just familiar with the blueprint — they helped design it.

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Tucker DeVries, a 6-foot-7 wing who transferred in with his father, is the closest thing Indiana has to a returning player, even though he’s never worn an IU jersey.

This is his third school in three seasons, and yet, for him, this summer has been almost comfortingly routine. A new locker room? Sure. But the voice leading practice is the same one that’s guided him through a decorated career at Drake and a short, promising stretch at West Virginia.

He’s already helped build two programs. He knows the process. The trip to Puerto Rico later this month will mark his third straight summer foreign tour under his father — a tradition that’s helped shape team chemistry in seasons past.

“The biggest thing is just spending time together,” Tucker said Wednesday. “That’s a full week of you’re spending every minute together as a group. And usually when we come back in the fall from that trip — this is my third straight one — you can see a big difference in the chemistry.”

That chemistry — that intangible mix of trust, communication and shared experience — is what the DeVries duo hopes to spark long before the first Big Ten tipoff.

Despite a shoulder injury that ended his season after just eight games at West Virginia, Tucker averaged nearly 15 points per game last year, including a 26-point outburst against Arizona in the Battle 4 Atlantis.

Now healthy, with a waiver secured for a final year of eligibility, he’s poised not only to lead but to anchor Indiana’s transformation from day one.

“Trying to help guys, get in the right spots, and if they have a question and don’t really feel like they want to go to a coach, they can always come to me and Conor,” Tucker said. “They’ve done a great job… I give them props, because they work really hard at trying to understand what we’re trying to do as a whole.”

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He doesn’t just know where guys should be — he understands why. That level of fluency in a coach’s system is rare. On this Indiana roster, it’s exclusive.

But if Tucker is the calm translator of DeVries’ system, Enright is its wiry spark plug.

A 6-foot-2 guard from Mundelein, Illinois, Enright spent two seasons playing under Darian DeVries at Drake before transferring to DePaul last year. There, he blossomed into one of the Big East’s best passers, averaging 6.2 assists per game and collecting seven double-doubles before a shoulder injury ended his season in February.

Now back with familiar faces, Enright is bringing an unmistakable intensity to Indiana’s summer workouts.

At an open practice Wednesday, he didn’t take a single rep off. Whether pestering ballhandlers, diving for loose balls or orchestrating offensive sets, the redshirt senior was relentless. Even during water breaks, his voice rang out from the sidelines, calling out defensive rotations or encouraging teammates.

“Conor is going to be Conor at the end of the day,” said senior wing Lamar Wilkerson. “Whether there are 100 people here or it’s just me and him, but he’s definitely a pest.”

The type of pest coaches love.

Enright’s game has always been about more than points. His toughness, feel and leadership show up in ways that don’t need a box score. In DeVries’ system, where effort and intelligence are currency, he’s exactly the kind of player that makes everything run cleaner.

“He had zero points and dominated the game,” Darian DeVries said, recalling one of the first times he saw Enright play in high school. “He was diving on the floor, taking charges, making everybody on the other team mad; he’s just one of those guys.”

For a fanbase as passionate — and detail-attentive — as Indiana’s, Enright will be hard to miss and easy to love. His game is loud, even when his stat line isn’t.

“He doesn’t know another way,” DeVries added. “I think people are really going to enjoy watching him play.”

With a roster full of transfers, underclassmen and newcomers trying to find their way, DeVries and Enright are the only players who don’t need directions. They’ve been through the paces. They know the reads. They understand the standards — because they helped build them.

“Having two guys that have been through it helps a lot,” Enright said. “We’ve been trying to lead, whether it’s through drills or plays — just setting the standard and having the expectations that we’re supposed to have.”

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That standard is slowly seeping into the team’s daily habits. It shows up in the way players cut off the ball, how they communicate on defense and how they respond to mistakes. Those things aren’t innate. They’re learned. And this summer, they’re being taught by two players who’ve already lived the system’s success — and setbacks.

Puerto Rico will provide the next test, both in terms of execution and cohesion. It will be the first time Indiana puts its new identity to the test in live competition.

For Tucker, it’s a rhythm he already understands. For Enright, it’s a return to form. And for everyone else, it’s a crash course.

But this is where Indiana has a quiet advantage. While other programs installing new systems must build from scratch, the Hoosiers have two players who brought the blueprints with them.

In a season where everything feels new, Tucker DeVries and Conor Enright are the constants. They are the compass points in a program trying to find its way.

And if Indiana is going to hit the ground running in Year 1 of the DeVries era, it’ll be because two players already knew where to go.

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