Post by mhbruin on Mar 29, 2024 14:40:05 GMT -8
CHANGES
5/15 Added transfer Langdon Hatton
6/3 - Added Jakai Newton to the list of returning players.
====================
The Indiana Hoosiers finished in a 3-way tie for 6th place in the B1G. They are coached by Mike Woodson who was a head coach in the NBA for 9 seasons and just finished his third season in Bloomington. He took the Hoosiers to the NCAA tournament his first two seasons, but they missed the dance in his most recent season.
Indiana was the fourth-best college team in the state of Indiana. The Hoosiers were mediocre at everything, ranking #105 at offense and #84 at defense. Their three-point shooting was terrible. They were #355 out of 362 schools in three-point scoring which was the worst for a major college team..
Quotes below are from: Indiana basketball transfer portal roster changes: Who's staying, going
GRADUATING
After six seasons, Xavier Johnson has run out of eligibility. He had an injury-plagued career at Indiana. He was their second best three-point shooter. 37% was really good for the Hoosiers.
IN THE DRAFT OR TURNING PRO
Kel'el Ware is named after Kal-El which is Superman's real name. But he played like Superman for Indiana.
Kel'el Ware led the Hoosiers in points, rebounds, and blocks, with 1.9 blocks per game. The Oregon transfer was third-team All-Big-Ten. He was #21 in the country in rebounds per game. At 43%, he was also the best three-point shooter among the starters. In short, he was a beast.
TRANSFERRING OUT
None of these guys looks like a big loss.
RETURNING
Indiana only loses one or two important players from a pretty good team. You might expect they return a lot of production. You would be right.
Indiana returns a nice core of players including three starters and a part-time starter (alhough Cupps started due to an injury to Xavier Johnson).
Malik Reneau "The 6-9 sophomore power forward was, at times, IU's best player, when he wasn't in foul trouble. He averaged 15.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists."
Mackenzie Mgbako: " The 6-8 freshman forward started slowly but became a critical contributor, averaging 12.1 points and 3.9 rebounds while bumping his 3-point accuracy to 34.3% by season's end. Some NBA mock drafts considered him a possible selection."
Trey Galloway: "The 6-5 senior guard became the de facto point guard in the wake of Xavier Johnson's injuries, producing several double-digit assist performance late in the season. He averaged 10.8 points and 4.8 assists, but struggled from 3-point range ."
Gabe Cupps: "The 6-2 freshman was pressed into the starting lineup in the wake of Johnson's injuries, averaging 2.7 points."
Anthony Leal: "The 6-5 senior guard saw more action in Big Ten play, helping the Hoosiers beat Iowa with 13 points, his only career game in double figures. " He seemed to be their best three-point shooter, but he only took 19 of them all season.
Freshman Jakai Newton missed the entire season due to injury. He's considered an excellent athlete and defender.
RECRUITS
(#84 class, #18 in B1G)
Indiana is the only team in the Big Ten with only one incoming freshman. However, he is a good one.
TRANSFERRING IN
Coach Woodson is raiding the Pac-12 for three players including two members of the All-Pac-12 team. Kanaan Carlyle was honorable mention for the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team. Was the Pac-12 having a going out of business sale?
The Hoosiers have put together a monster transfer class, with the #2 player in the portal and three of the top 25 players available.
Oumar Ballo: "The 7-footer has been a force near the basket for two seasons at Arizona, averaging 13.5 points, 9.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocked shots over that period. He has one season of eligibility." He was named All-Pac-12 for the second year in a row.
Myles Rice: "Rice was named the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year for Washington State after averaging 14.8 points (he was a 81.1% free throw shooter), 3.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists while starting in all 35 of his team's games. He missed two seasons before that for cancer treatment." The only weakness in his game was shooting.
Luke Goode (who wears two shoes) played quite a bit for the Illini. He was primarily a three-point specialist. 157 of his 179 shots (88%) were threes. He wasn't exactly a playmaker. He had 22 assists to go with those 179 shots.
Kanaan Carlyle was the "other" freshman in Stanford's recruiting class. Andrej Stojakovic got all the attention. However, Carlyle led Stojakovic in just about every statistical category including starts, minutes, points, and assists. However, he wasn't a great shooter, and Stojakovic was better.
Langdon Hatton started his career at William and Mary before transferring to Bellarmine, where he led the last-place team in the ASUN in rebounds and blocks. We'll see if he is all Hatton and no cattle. He does give the Hoosiers a true center to back up Ballo, who only played 26 minutes per game at Arizona.
CONCLUSION
The Hoosiers return 4 starters. They return the most starts of any team in the B1G. They also bring back their top three-point shooter. Then they bring in one of the top transfer classes in the nation, featuring the second-best transfer in the country and three other guys who have proved they can play at a Power 5 level. They even add a highly-ranked freshman.
They have a lot of talent with a 5-star player and eight 4-star players. They should compete for the Big Ten title. They might even be the favorites.
Although many Indiana fans don't love him, I think Coach Woodson is a good coach. The Hoosiers strike me as one of the most underrated teams in the country going into next season.
The big question is three-point shooting. Luke Goode is a good shooter and Anthony Leal was very good in limited PT last season. Will that be enough? With Ballo in the middle, I suspect it will be.
Some writers are trying to set up UCLA and Indiana as rivals. It is true that historically John Wooden and Bob Knight didn't like each other. We were also both elite programs back in the day. Will this become a rivalry? It is possible. It's more likely than most of the teams in the B1G. Our big rivals will still be SC and Oregon. Indiana's big rival will remain Purdue.
I suspect we will grow to hate Indiana and their entitled fans. I already hate those red and white warm-up pants.
Torvick projects Indiana as the #23 team and #4 in the B1G, with a 20-11 record and 11-9 in the conference. I think they will be better.
247 picks the Hoosiers to finish 2nd in the Big Ten.
Lunardi picks Indiana as a #4 seed.
Vrooman picks them 4th. He writes:
4. Indiana Hoosiers
Projected Adjusted Efficiency Margin: +20.77 (+18.74 last year)
Coaching Info: Mike Woodson -6.60 (73rd)
5 Highest Rated Players: 6’9 F Malik Reneau (15.4 pts, 6.0 reb), 6’8 F Mackenzie Mgbako (12.2 pts, 4.1 reb), 7’0 C Oumar Ballo (Arizona- 12.9 pts, 10.1 reb), 6’5 G Trey Galloway (10.6 pts, 4.6 ast), 6’3 G Myles Rice (Washington State- 14.8 pts, 3.8 ast)
Hey, fun fact. Do you know the last time Indiana finished inside the top-25 at KenPom? Way back in 2016 which is also the last time the Hoosiers made the Sweet 16. Since then Tom Crean flamed out, Archie Miller never achieved liftoff, and Mike Woodson has put together talented rosters that just haven’t ever quite come together.
This looks to be another season where the pieces don’t fit but the collection of talent may be so overwhelming that it doesn’t really matter. Indiana absolutely feasted on the death of the Pac-12 bringing in Arizona’s Oumar Ballo, Wazzu’s Myles Rice, and Stanford’s Kanaan Carlyle. Ballo and Rice were both all-conference selections while Carlyle had a solid season as a four-star freshman. The thing all 3 have in common? They can’t really shoot. Carlyle shot just 32% from outside but was the best of the bunch as Rice was below 30% and Ballo can’t make anything but dunks.
That trio will join returning starters Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako who are both former top-30 recruits and are big forwards that each shot ~33% from deep last year as Indiana’s 2nd and 3rd leading scorers. All 5 of those players have the potential to be 1st team all-conference either this year or in the future. Mike Woodson hasn’t provided a lot of evidence though that he can turn that group into a Final Four contender.
5/15 Added transfer Langdon Hatton
6/3 - Added Jakai Newton to the list of returning players.
====================
The Indiana Hoosiers finished in a 3-way tie for 6th place in the B1G. They are coached by Mike Woodson who was a head coach in the NBA for 9 seasons and just finished his third season in Bloomington. He took the Hoosiers to the NCAA tournament his first two seasons, but they missed the dance in his most recent season.
Indiana was the fourth-best college team in the state of Indiana. The Hoosiers were mediocre at everything, ranking #105 at offense and #84 at defense. Their three-point shooting was terrible. They were #355 out of 362 schools in three-point scoring which was the worst for a major college team..
Quotes below are from: Indiana basketball transfer portal roster changes: Who's staying, going
GRADUATING
| Player | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Notes |
| Xavier Johnson | 20 | 13 | 26 | 8 | 2.6 | 2.8 | |
| Anthony Walker | 32 | 1 | 14 | 5 | 2.3 | 0.8 | |
| | |||||||
| . |
After six seasons, Xavier Johnson has run out of eligibility. He had an injury-plagued career at Indiana. He was their second best three-point shooter. 37% was really good for the Hoosiers.
IN THE DRAFT OR TURNING PRO
| Player | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Can Return? |
| Kel'el Ware | 30 | 30 | 32 | 16 | 9.9 | 1.6 | No |
Kel'el Ware is named after Kal-El which is Superman's real name. But he played like Superman for Indiana.
Kel'el Ware led the Hoosiers in points, rebounds, and blocks, with 1.9 blocks per game. The Oregon transfer was third-team All-Big-Ten. He was #21 in the country in rebounds per game. At 43%, he was also the best three-point shooter among the starters. In short, he was a beast.
TRANSFERRING OUT
| Player | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Notes | Destination |
| CJ Gunn | 29 | 0 | 13 | 4 | 1.0 | 0.6 | DePaul | |
| Kaleb Banks | 21 | 0 | 11 | 3 | 1.8 | 0.8 | Tulanne | |
| Payton Sparks | 24 | 2 | 7 | 2 | 1.8 | 0.3 | Ball State | |
| . | ||||||||
| . | ||||||||
None of these guys looks like a big loss.
RETURNING
Indiana only loses one or two important players from a pretty good team. You might expect they return a lot of production. You would be right.
| STAT | RETURNING |
| Starts | 72% |
| Minutes | 29% |
| Points | 58% |
| 3-Pointers Made | 69% |
| Rebounds | 46% |
| Assists | 67% |
| Steals | 57% |
| Blocks | 32% |
Indiana returns a nice core of players including three starters and a part-time starter (alhough Cupps started due to an injury to Xavier Johnson).
| Player | Size | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | FG% | 3Pt% | A/TO | Class | Recruiting Stars | Recruiting Rank |
| Malik Reneau F | 33 | 33 | 29 | 15 | 6.0 | 2.7 | 56% | 33% | 0.9 | Jr | 4 | 30 | |
| Mackenzie Mgbako F | 6-8 217 | 33 | 33 | 27 | 12 | 4.1 | 1.3 | 40% | 33% | 1.0 | So | 5 | 10 |
| Trey Galloway G | 6-9 233 | 31 | 31 | 33 | 11 | 2.9 | 4.6 | 47% | 26% | 2.2 | Sr 5 | 3 | 157 |
| Gabe Cupps G | 6-2 175 | 33 | 22 | 22 | 3 | 1.8 | 1.2 | 36% | 36% | 1.5 | So | 4 | 94 |
| Anthony Leal G | 6-5 200 | 21 | 0 | 15 | 2 | 2.1 | 1.1 | 44% | 48% | 1.7 | Sr 5 | 4 | 155 |
| Jakai Newton G | 6-3 190 | 0 | Fr | 4 | 118 |
Malik Reneau "The 6-9 sophomore power forward was, at times, IU's best player, when he wasn't in foul trouble. He averaged 15.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists."
Mackenzie Mgbako: " The 6-8 freshman forward started slowly but became a critical contributor, averaging 12.1 points and 3.9 rebounds while bumping his 3-point accuracy to 34.3% by season's end. Some NBA mock drafts considered him a possible selection."
Trey Galloway: "The 6-5 senior guard became the de facto point guard in the wake of Xavier Johnson's injuries, producing several double-digit assist performance late in the season. He averaged 10.8 points and 4.8 assists, but struggled from 3-point range ."
Gabe Cupps: "The 6-2 freshman was pressed into the starting lineup in the wake of Johnson's injuries, averaging 2.7 points."
Anthony Leal: "The 6-5 senior guard saw more action in Big Ten play, helping the Hoosiers beat Iowa with 13 points, his only career game in double figures. " He seemed to be their best three-point shooter, but he only took 19 of them all season.
Freshman Jakai Newton missed the entire season due to injury. He's considered an excellent athlete and defender.
RECRUITS
(#84 class, #18 in B1G)
| Player | Size | Position | Recruiting Stars | Recruiting Rank | Offers |
| Bryson Tucker | 6-6 180 | SF | 4 | 28 | Kansas, Duke, Illinois |
| . | |||||
| . |
Indiana is the only team in the Big Ten with only one incoming freshman. However, he is a good one.
TRANSFERRING IN
| SOURCE | NATIONAL CLASS RANK | BIG TEN CLASS RANK |
| 247 | 2 | 1 |
| Evan Miya | 7 | 2 |
Coach Woodson is raiding the Pac-12 for three players including two members of the All-Pac-12 team. Kanaan Carlyle was honorable mention for the Pac-12 All-Freshman Team. Was the Pac-12 having a going out of business sale?
| Player | Size | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | FG % | 3-Pt % | A/TO | From | Class | Recruiting Stars | Recruiting Rank | Transfer Rank |
| Oumar Ballo | 7-0 260 | 36 | 36 | 26 | 13 | 10.1 | 0.8 | 66% | -- | 0.6 | Arizona | Sr 5 | 4 | 78 | 2 |
| Myles Rice | 6-3 180 | 35 | 35 | 33 | 15 | 3.1 | 3.8 | 44% | 28% | 1.5 | Washington State | So | 3 | 227 | 24 |
| Luke Goode | 6-7 210 | 38 | 7 | 22 | 6 | 3.6 | 0.6 | 40% | 39% | 1.2 | Illinois | Sr | 4 | 103 | 131 |
| Kanaan Carlyle | 6-2 175 | 23 | 16 | 26 | 12 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 39% | 32% | 0.9 | Stanford | So | 4 | 52 | 15 |
| Langdon Hatton C | 6-20 240 | 31 | 31 | 28 | 11 | 7.1 | 1.3 | 48% | 33% | 1.3 | Bellarmine | Sr | Unranked | 401 |
The Hoosiers have put together a monster transfer class, with the #2 player in the portal and three of the top 25 players available.
Oumar Ballo: "The 7-footer has been a force near the basket for two seasons at Arizona, averaging 13.5 points, 9.4 rebounds and 1.3 blocked shots over that period. He has one season of eligibility." He was named All-Pac-12 for the second year in a row.
Myles Rice: "Rice was named the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year for Washington State after averaging 14.8 points (he was a 81.1% free throw shooter), 3.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists while starting in all 35 of his team's games. He missed two seasons before that for cancer treatment." The only weakness in his game was shooting.
Luke Goode (who wears two shoes) played quite a bit for the Illini. He was primarily a three-point specialist. 157 of his 179 shots (88%) were threes. He wasn't exactly a playmaker. He had 22 assists to go with those 179 shots.
Kanaan Carlyle was the "other" freshman in Stanford's recruiting class. Andrej Stojakovic got all the attention. However, Carlyle led Stojakovic in just about every statistical category including starts, minutes, points, and assists. However, he wasn't a great shooter, and Stojakovic was better.
Langdon Hatton started his career at William and Mary before transferring to Bellarmine, where he led the last-place team in the ASUN in rebounds and blocks. We'll see if he is all Hatton and no cattle. He does give the Hoosiers a true center to back up Ballo, who only played 26 minutes per game at Arizona.
CONCLUSION
The Hoosiers return 4 starters. They return the most starts of any team in the B1G. They also bring back their top three-point shooter. Then they bring in one of the top transfer classes in the nation, featuring the second-best transfer in the country and three other guys who have proved they can play at a Power 5 level. They even add a highly-ranked freshman.
They have a lot of talent with a 5-star player and eight 4-star players. They should compete for the Big Ten title. They might even be the favorites.
Although many Indiana fans don't love him, I think Coach Woodson is a good coach. The Hoosiers strike me as one of the most underrated teams in the country going into next season.
The big question is three-point shooting. Luke Goode is a good shooter and Anthony Leal was very good in limited PT last season. Will that be enough? With Ballo in the middle, I suspect it will be.
Some writers are trying to set up UCLA and Indiana as rivals. It is true that historically John Wooden and Bob Knight didn't like each other. We were also both elite programs back in the day. Will this become a rivalry? It is possible. It's more likely than most of the teams in the B1G. Our big rivals will still be SC and Oregon. Indiana's big rival will remain Purdue.
I suspect we will grow to hate Indiana and their entitled fans. I already hate those red and white warm-up pants.
Torvick projects Indiana as the #23 team and #4 in the B1G, with a 20-11 record and 11-9 in the conference. I think they will be better.
247 picks the Hoosiers to finish 2nd in the Big Ten.
Lunardi picks Indiana as a #4 seed.
Vrooman picks them 4th. He writes:
4. Indiana Hoosiers
Projected Adjusted Efficiency Margin: +20.77 (+18.74 last year)
Coaching Info: Mike Woodson -6.60 (73rd)
5 Highest Rated Players: 6’9 F Malik Reneau (15.4 pts, 6.0 reb), 6’8 F Mackenzie Mgbako (12.2 pts, 4.1 reb), 7’0 C Oumar Ballo (Arizona- 12.9 pts, 10.1 reb), 6’5 G Trey Galloway (10.6 pts, 4.6 ast), 6’3 G Myles Rice (Washington State- 14.8 pts, 3.8 ast)
Hey, fun fact. Do you know the last time Indiana finished inside the top-25 at KenPom? Way back in 2016 which is also the last time the Hoosiers made the Sweet 16. Since then Tom Crean flamed out, Archie Miller never achieved liftoff, and Mike Woodson has put together talented rosters that just haven’t ever quite come together.
This looks to be another season where the pieces don’t fit but the collection of talent may be so overwhelming that it doesn’t really matter. Indiana absolutely feasted on the death of the Pac-12 bringing in Arizona’s Oumar Ballo, Wazzu’s Myles Rice, and Stanford’s Kanaan Carlyle. Ballo and Rice were both all-conference selections while Carlyle had a solid season as a four-star freshman. The thing all 3 have in common? They can’t really shoot. Carlyle shot just 32% from outside but was the best of the bunch as Rice was below 30% and Ballo can’t make anything but dunks.
That trio will join returning starters Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako who are both former top-30 recruits and are big forwards that each shot ~33% from deep last year as Indiana’s 2nd and 3rd leading scorers. All 5 of those players have the potential to be 1st team all-conference either this year or in the future. Mike Woodson hasn’t provided a lot of evidence though that he can turn that group into a Final Four contender.