College Hoops Top 50

Last Year: 19-14; 10-10, Sixth in the Big Ten Conference, No Postseason

Head Coach: Mike Woodson (Fourth Year; 63-40 at Indiana, with two NCAA Tournament appearances)

Projected Starting Lineup

PG Myles Rice – 6’3″, 185 Sophomore

G Trey Galloway – 6’5″, 205 5th-year Senior

W Mackenzie Mgbako – 6’9″, 222 Sophomore

F Malik Reneau – 6’9″, 232 Junior

C Oumar Ballo – 7’0″, 265 5th-year Senior

Experienced Reserves

G Gabe Cupps – 6’2″, 180 Sophomore

G Kanaan Carlyle – 6’3″, 182 Sophomore

G Anthony Leal – 6’5″, 200 5th-year Senior

W Luke Goode – 6’7″, 203 Senior

C Dallas James – 7’0″, 245 5th-year Senior

Freshmen

G Jakai Newton – 6’3″, 210 (redshirt)

W Bryson Tucker – 6’7″, 207 / Consensus Top 50 recruit

‘Dollar, dollar bill, y’all’

– Mike Woodson, probably 

Basketball rules everything around Bloomington, it’s got to be accepted. Entering last season with a considerable amount of talent but a fair number of question marks, most in and around Bloomington still expected Indiana to make a run at the NCAA Tournament. After all, they had some clear future pro’s on the court. 

Fourteen losses overall, a non-winning record in Big Ten play for the seventh time in eight years, and no postseason whatsoever later, and it’s fair to say that goodwill is wearing thin for Woodson. The popular former player-turned head coach spoke at length about having a team last year which fit his ideals of a disruptive defensive squad. The Hoosiers would go on to be torched time and time again, force very few turnovers, and allow two more points on average than they scored per game. You get the picture. 

With the full bloom of NIL in college athletics, Indiana has recourse to improve things, or so the folks in candy-striped pants must hope. The Hoosiers came out swinging in the transfer portal this spring, and landed some of the best talent available. Did Coach Woody get the right mix this time? Buckle up, because we’re all about to find out. 

Indiana has one of America’s most talented trios along its front line, and it is upon their combined excellence that the Hoosiers’ foundation will be built. The most fascinating dynamic to watch develop will be the one between a pair of fairly traditional post-up bigs.

In his second season as a Hoosier, Malik Reneau showed off a vast range of ways to affect the game offensively out of the post. The 6’9″ junior ranked among the Big Ten’s top 15 players in scoring average, assist rate, and points produced per game, but he also led the league in fouls committed and gave away the second-most turnovers. This year, with better health from the IU guards and more help up front, Reneau should be able to play his naturally unselfish game without having to drive a great deal of the Hoosier offense. 

A creative big man with the strength to open up space inside and the great footwork and presence to make it all happen for his side, Reneau’s star ascended quickly last year. Reneau saw the second-most post-up opportunities out of the pick-and-roll of any Big Ten player, and he averaged an even point per possession, per Synergy Sports. He got double-teamed like crazy late in the year and the turnovers came in clusters, but Reneau is a pleasant blend of old-school power forward and modern face-up big with playmaking skills. The turnovers hurt, but he shot the ball with outstanding efficiency all over the halfcourt. He converted 69.2% of his looks near the rim, and Reneau sank a steady 44.5% of his 128 mid-range shots, per Bart Torvik. His three-point shot is developing, and in an effort to play more away from the post this year, Reneau has worked on his perimeter ballhandling and jumper. There is a lot to like about the game he naturally plays, and Reneau proved last year that he can be the star at the lead of a high-end crew. 

A large part of the reason that Reneau could be playing outside with more regularity this fall is the addition of a large new pivot. Former Arizona big man Oumar Ballo is as commanding a presence as any in the nation, and the two-time All-Pac-12 center will be occupying a large role in the middle for IU. He’s not much of a new-age post; Ballo plays with his back to the basket, intimidates folks who try to drive the ball at the rim, and rattles the rim regularly. Since becoming a starter in the Sonoran Desert, Ballo has made 65.3% of his field goal tries and thundered home 120 dunks in 71 games played. Though he’s as traditional a pivot as can be found in today’s game, Woodson sees a future where Ballo can thrive alongside Reneau for stretches. 

Five Stats Which Tell The Tale (with national ranks)

47.6% – Team FG Percentage (34th)

14.5 – Opponent FT Per Game (260th)

15.3 – Assists Per Game (55th)

5.2 – Steals Per Game (325th)

8.6 – Opponent 3FG Per Game (323rd)

“I think he (Ballo) and Malik will be just fine. It might free Malik up a little bit more to do some things that I want him to do differently this year but I think they can both co-exist,” Woodson mused at a Hoosiers NIL event this summer. Though both are low-post scorers, Reneau’s passing ability and Ballo’s experience in a 4-out offense with the Wildcats could combine to afford the Hoosiers some excellent big-to-big action. As much as IU is looking forward to Ballo as a finisher around the rim, his voracious rebounding and shot swatting at the back of Woodson’s defense will be of tremendous value. With the Pac-12 enshrined now as history, Ballo finished eighth all-time in the league in rebounding percentage, and he led the conference in offensive, defensive, and total rebounding percentage a year ago. If he can provide a deterrent at the back end who reliably cleans the boards, Ballo will five Indiana rock-solid value in the middle. 

Much was expected of Mackenzie Mgbako’s debut season, and the youngster largely lived up to the hype. Even the fourth-meal memes he gave the college hoops world weren’t enough to fully satisfy all that IU and its fans had hoped, though. This year, his coach is expecting that Mgbako will show off some improvements, and that his experience has prepared him for it. 

“You think because a guy wears a five-star, a four-star, that they can come into college and tear it up. It’s not that easy. It’s no different than going from college to the NBA, man. It’s a learning curve,” Woodson explained this summer. “It was an eye opener for him because he did struggle early. But he just kept working and working and working and he got better. And I can’t help but think that he’s going to continue to get better.”

“I’ve learned in this short period of time that I’ve been in college, you win with good guard play.”

– Mike Woodson

Though he got off to an inconsistent start, Mgbako found his stride after the new year. Over Indiana’s final 18 games, he averaged 14.6 points, and Mgbako’s confidence in his outside shot improved as the season went on. He naturally looks to score from all three levels, and Mgbako has the size, length, and quickness to get himself an open shot when he wants to. He can operate as a forward alongside Reneau, and should be able to do so in more 4-out sets when Ballo is out there and Woodson wants to go quicker around him. With his mismatch potential and elite natural tools, Mgbako needs only to sand down some rough edges and add nuance to his game to blossom.

With plenty of injuries at the point over the past few years, Woodson wasn’t messing around this spring when it came to adding talent to the backcourt. In addition to a pair of returning starters, Indiana has added a couple of high-end talents out of the portal as well as a Top 100 recruit who had to redshirt last year. 

“I’ve learned in this short period of time that I’ve been in college, you win with good guard play,” Woodson reflected this summer. “And that was something that we came out of this past season not having X (point guard Xavier Johnson, who has exhausted his eligibility), you know, the games that he missed, that we had to really amp up our backcourt and get better and I thought we’ve done that.” 

When Johnson went down last year, Trey Galloway stepped up. His senior season was Galloway’s finest, as he went from a steady supporting role to playing a vitally important role coordinating the Hoosiers’ attack. He entered the starting lineup two years ago as a secondary facilitator who could stretch the floor and cash in on cuts to the rim while people worried about his star teammates. Last winter, Galloway became far more. 

“We were playing catch up where we had to mix and match and try to make Gallo (Trey Galloway) a point guard and Gallo did a hell of a job for us, he grew up in that area and being able to handle the ball and make plays for not only himself but for his teammates.” A tough, hard-driving guard who does a lot of his best work in the paint, Galloway posted career-best numbers across the board last year before a knee injury prematurely ended his season on Senior Day in Bloomington. He has spent the summer rehabilitating from meniscus surgery following the end of the campaign, and Galloway is expected to be ready to roll for the start of the season. A return to Galloway’s junior-year form on triple tries would be a big help to a Hoosiers lineup. The team struggled often to knock down deep balls a year ago, and while Galloway has never been a high-volume bombardier, he sank 46.2% of his attempts two seasons ago. Last year he slumped to 26.0%; IU needs better spacing overall, and a healthy Galloway can help to get it done. 

To help run the show and, Woodson hopes, continue his development as a headlining lead guard, Myles Rice has been brought in from Washington State. The Pac-12’s last-ever Rookie of the Year, Rice was also named first-team all-conference in a fantastic debut on the Palouse. His breakout is made all the more incredible when you remember that Rice should have begun playing for the Cougars a couple of years ago, but a battle with cancer forced him out of the lineup and into the hospital for chemotherapy treatments. 

Once he hit the floor last year, Rice was everything Wazzu could have hoped and more. He ranked fifth in the Pac-12 in assists per game after the team had entered summer practices unsure of who would take over at the point. Rice also ranked fourth in the league on steals per game, and a year removed from beating his diagnosis, he logged the sixth-most minutes of any Pac-12 player. He’s great off the bounce, and Rice is slippery weaving through traffic for good looks around the paint. He looked to score from everywhere as a rookie, and though his effectiveness waned from downtown as the year wore on and defenses hounded him, Rice showed that he’s capable of heating up and winning games with his jumper. The savvy which Rice gained in throwing catchable feeds down to the block for Isaac Jones, Ruben Chinyelu, and Oscar Cluff will pay off in nicely presented passes for the Hoosiers’ bigs. If Rice can stay healthy and continue upon the star-making trajectory he began last winter, IU may have finally sorted out their point guard spot for a few years. 

Just in case, though, Coach Woody made contingency plans. Freshman starter Gabe Cupps back to keep on living his childhood dream, Indiana is getting Jakai Newton – a 4-star recruit last year – back from injury, and the Hoosiers landed another 4-star freshman from the class of 2023 in Stanford transfer Kanaan Carlyle. Though he didn’t score much as a rookie, Cupps immediately demonstrated the great awareness and basketball smarts which made him yet another 4-star recruit. An Ohio kid who always wanted to play for IU some day, Cupps earned an average of 21.7 minutes per game right out of the gates, and largely handled his role with good decision-making and poise. He can shoot the rock, but Cupps didn’t look for his own shot much as a freshman and will always have his primary focus on running clean offense. As he becomes more of a scoring threat, Cupps should emerge as a truly steady player to function as an extension of Woodson’s wishes. 

Five Out-of-Conference Games to Keep an Eye on

N Gonzaga/West Virginia – November 28

N Louisville – November 27

vs South Carolina – November 16

N Paradise Jam third game – November 29

vs Chattanooga – December 21

His debut with Stanford wasn’t a resounding success, but that’s not entirely on Carlyle – the Cardinal had much deeper issues than their star freshman. He missed the first eight games of his rookie year due to injury, but Carlyle didn’t waste time showing his skills once he got on the floor. He dropped 28 points on Arizona in his fourth career game, and Carlyle hung 31 on Washington State a couple of weeks later. There was, of course, some expected freshman inconsistency from Carlyle, and turnovers came in clusters at times. His electric speed and change-of-direction remain, though, and Carlyle will be a big-time threat surrounded by established star players. He averaged 11.5 points and 2.7 assists on the year, and those are numbers that he should be able to equal as a very dangerous lead guard off of IU’s bench. 

Despite taking a redshirt to fully recover from a knee injury he suffered in high school, Newton retains the skills of a Top 100 recruit. Now that he’s marinated in Woodson’s system for two offseasons and seen his teammates in action, Newton should be primed to fit in quickly. He’s been described as a diligent worker on practice and the weight room, and Newton was spoken of as another guard who can be a whole lot for defenders to contain off the bounce. If he’s ready to return to swift, springy form, Newton will complement Carlyle in a very dangerous tandem for Woodson to call upon as a change of pace. They should both fit well with this year’s top signee, Bryson Tucker. A terrific mid-range scorer who has advanced awareness in the halfcourt and some of the best old-man attributes already in his quiver, Tucker is built to get buckets. 

“Tucker is a big wing who has a pretty polished game on the offensive end of the floor,” said Eric Bossi of 247 Sports upon seeing Tucker play near the end of 2023. “He is able to use his size to finish in the lane where he is also a very functional athlete who can get off the floor quickly in small spaces, changes direction well in traffic and has a great frame to build on in a college weight room.” As a youngster who doesn’t take bad shots and won’t need to have the ball in his hands much in order to help out, Tucker seems a great addition to this year’s Hoosiers. As he gets stronger and improves his three-point shot, Tucker looks to have all the ingredients of a future star. Luke Goode and Anthony Leal are plenty experienced, and will compete for reserve minutes of their own. Goode, an Illinois transfer, came to Bloomington to fulfill a family legacy in his final season of eligibility and has the length and shooting range to land knockout blows after IU’s stars have their opponent on the ropes. 

Despite the sting of not playing in the postseason at all last year following a summer of heightened expectations, Indiana is feeling confident headed into their upcoming campaign. A roster loaded with guys who have proven themselves in Bloomington and elsewhere will do that. The Hoosiers’ young talent is as well-regarded as just about anyone’s, too. There’s so much ability on this roster that another similar disappointment likely won’t be tolerated. This is a team that should compete for a Big Ten title and be playing on the second weekend of March Madness. At a program like Indiana, though, those demands are fairly standard. The feeling in Hoosier country is that it’s time for IU to reclaiming its place as a legitimate blue blood.