College basketball rankings: Darian DeVries has made an immediate impact at West Virginia

Any list of national coach of the year candidates can reasonably change every week with the twists and turns of a season.

Right now, my vote would probably go to Kentucky's Mark Pope but I'm keeping an open mind.

And, yes, West Virginia 's Darian DeVries has entered the conversation.

Have you paid attention to the Mountaineers? In Year 1 under DeVries, West Virginia is 13-4 with four Quadrant 1 victories specifically wins over Iowa State , Kansas , Gonzaga and Arizona and sitting at No.

25 in Tuesday morning's updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings.

That's great for a variety of reasons, among them that the Mountaineers were picked 13th in the Big 12's preseason poll published after the league's 16 coaches submitted ballots.

Like Pope at Kentucky, DeVries built West Virginia's entire roster from nothing in one offseason (sans one player who has only played five minutes total).

So his fingerprints are on everything.

And making it all even more impressive is the fact that West Virginia's second-leading scorer, the coach's son, Tucker DeVries , has missed the past nine games with an upper-body injury.

When will DeVries return? That remains unclear.

But the good news is that the Mountaineers have gone 7-2 in his absence, point being they're good even without him.

And they'll have a chance to show that again late Tuesday -- unless DeVries returns, of course -- when they host Arizona State in a game scheduled to tip a little after 9 ET on CBS Sports Network.

If you tune in, you'll have a chance to see Javon Small , who is West Virginia's leading scorer and someone who is emerging as a threat to replace Kansas' Hunter Dickinson as the favorite to win Big 12 Player of the Year honors.

The 6-foot-3 senior just scored 27 points in a 64-57 win over Iowa State.

Two games before that, he got 26 points in a 78-70 win over Colorado .

The transfer from Oklahoma State has scored at least 12 points in every game this season and is now averaging 19.8 points, 5.2 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 1.9 steals.

"He's been just incredible all year," Darian DeVries said, according to WVSports.com .

"I think he's the best guard in the country right now." Top 25 And 1 rankings.

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