Jerni Kiaku, a guard who transferred to Indiana from Duquesne this past offseason, will spend her final year of eligibility with the Hoosiers in 2025-26.
Here’s what you need to know about her this season:
The Background
Kiaku spent the past two seasons at Duquesne after starting her career as a freshman at North Carolina Central. She won Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year in 2022-23 before joining the Dukes, coming off the bench as a sophomore before spending all of this past season as a starter. Notably, she played with former Hoosier Kiandra Browne at Duquesne.
The Stats and Skillset
Kiaku averaged 13.2 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.7 assist and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 47.1% from the field, 26.7% from 3 and 71.4% from the free throw line this past season.
She has a bit of a handle and the speed to blow by defenders and either get a defense in rotation or find a way to get to the rim. She’s just 5’7”, so she doesn’t have the size Indiana typically has in the backcourt, but could make up for that with aforementioned speed and by being an all-around pest defensively like Nicole Cardaño-Hillary was.
Also, she just knows how to finish around the rim. 47.1% from the field was good for fifth in the Atlantic-10 this past season.
The Role
I’m interested in how Indiana opts to deploy Kiaku. Could she start at the point given her overall experience in college basketball? Maybe, bur pairing her with Shay Ciezki in the backcourt would mean a serious sacrifice in size. Could she come off the bench as the first guard? Teri Moren hasn’t relied on her bench too much at Indiana, but if someone could make it work it’d probably be Kiaku.
