MORGANTOWN — Men’s basketball coach Darian DeVries is putting together the pieces for his first staff at West Virginia University, though the puzzle is not yet complete.
The only staff members besides DeVries who have officially been announced as of this writing are Nick Norton, an assistant coach/director of player development, and Chester Frazier, the Mountaineers’ associate head coach.
Various national media outlets have also reported Nelson Hernandez and Kory Barnett are expected to join DeVries’ staff, and their hirings will likely be announced soon.
Norton comes to West Virginia after spending the last three seasons on DeVries’ staff at Drake.
“Nick is a hard worker who brings great enthusiasm and tremendous energy to our basketball program,†DeVries said. “He always has a great rapport with our players and has a strong basketball IQ. Nick fits our basketball staff and our program extremely well.â€
Norton joined the Drake staff before the 2021-22 season as assistant director of operations and was elevated to director of operations for the 2022-23 season. Last year, he was promoted to assistant coach/director of player development, and that’s the same title he will hold at West Virginia.
Norton began his college playing career at UAB (2014-18), making 97 starts for the Blazers. He was named to the All-Conference USA third team as a sophomore after averaging 8.9 points per game and leading the league in assist-to-turnover ratio.
Norton also was named the C-USA Men’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year. As a freshman, he was one of 21 Kyle Macy National Freshman of the Year Award finalists and was named to the C-USA all-freshman team.
He transferred to Drake in 2018 and averaged 14.0 points, 5.9 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game before an injury ended his collegiate career.
Norton set Drake’s single-game assists record (17) against North Dakota State, which stood until the 2022-23 season. He scored a career-high 31 points against San Diego and recorded the second triple-double in team history with 18 points, 17 assists and 13 rebounds against North Dakota State.
In 2019, Norton signed with the South Bay Lakers of the NBA G League, appearing in two games before stepping away due to injuries.
His father, Randy, is the women’s basketball coach at UAB. Nick and his wife, Caraline, have one son, Campton.
Frazier was a point guard for Illinois from 2006-09. A native of Baltimore, Frazier led the Big Ten with an average of 5.3 assists and owned a 2.4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in his senior season.
Frazier played professionally in Germany after college, helping lead Goettingen to the 2010 EuroChallenge title. He was a graduate assistant/video coordinator at Illinois in 2011 before returning to Germany for one last season as a player with Oliver Wuerzburg in 2012.
Frazier’s first full-time college coaching opportunity came at Kansas State, serving as an assistant for seven seasons with the Wildcats. He then spent two years at Virginia Tech before moving back to his alma mater, where he was an assistant coach under Brad Underwood for the past three seasons before reportedly deciding to accept DeVries’ offer to join the Mountaineer staff.
“Chester Frazier is one of the brightest young stars in the coaching profession,†Underwood said in Frazier’s Illinois bio. “His love for his alma mater has stayed with him throughout his brilliant rise in the coaching ranks. This place means a great deal to him, having sweat equity in our program.
“Chester is a leader, a competitor and a winner. He’s achieved great success, as a player here and as a coach at both Kansas State and Virginia Tech. His work ethic on the court and on the recruiting trail, combined with the strong relationships he builds with players, make him a tremendous fit for the Fighting Illini.â€
Frazier and his wife, Sarah, have two children — daughter Chandler and son Cameron.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Hernandez is expected to be the general manager at West Virginia.
A 2013 graduate of Utah State, where he was the Aggies’ video coordinator from 2010-14, Hernandez also worked as the video coordinator at Clemson (2014-15) and the director of player development at Wright State (2015-16), as well as the director of basketball operations for both VCU (2016-17) and LSU (2017-22).
He was an assistant coach at Fresno State in 2022-23 before becoming the director of player development at Oklahoma State last season.
Now he’ll reportedly be the general manager at WVU, where it’s expected he’ll deal with all manners of recruiting and roster management.
Hernandez also produced an award-winning documentary about Louisville women’s guards Shoni and Jude Schimmel called “Off the Rez,†which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and later aired on TLC.
DeVries is still interviewing others to fill additional job openings on his WVU staff.
While he’s finalizing his coaching staff, DeVries also is assembling a roster through transfer, junior college and high school recruitment.
