Indiana men’s basketball has fully entered its first full offseason under head coach Darian DeVries. The program has been in offseason mode for a few weeks now with roster movement and a new assistant coaching hire, but the transfer portal opening up gives the Hoosiers the chance to rebuild the roster ahead of year two.
Last year, DeVries was focused on assembling both a staff and roster with just a few staffers and one player following him from West Virginia. The resulting roster came with several
flaws that ultimately helped keep the Hoosiers out of the NCAA Tournament. Now DeVries has a fully assembled staff of assistants and staffers to focus solely on roster construction.
With this in mind, we’re going to be taking a look at the transfer portal in the coming days to see which players Indiana could go after. With a near-total roster rebuild underway, the program won’t have a shortage of need.
Potential Indiana transfer portal targets
- Centers
- Forwards (coming soon)
- Wings (coming soon)
Guards
This is going to be an interesting one to separate because of the different roles guards can play as distributors, scorers and a combination of the two. DeVries tended to have strong play at point guard in previous rosters at West Virginia and Drake with Javon Small being one of the best guards in the Big 12 with the Mountaineers and Roman Penn being one of the best in the Missouri Valley with the Bulldogs.
Both Small and Penn led their respective conferences in assist rate in league play, with the latter doing so in three out of his four seasons with Drake. It’s clear DeVries wants or needs a really productive distributor in his offenses, so we’ve taken that into account here.
Here’s a few guards from the portal we think could fit in:
Dedan Thomas, LSU
Thomas spent his first year at the high major level during this past season with LSU, averaging 15.3 points, 2.7 rebounds and 6.5 assists while shooting 45.9% from the field and 30.2% from 3-point range in 29.4 minutes per game. He was limited due to a foot injury, playing in 16 games for the Tigers with 15 starts.
What jumps out about Thomas is his sky-high assist rate of 43.4 with a turnover rate of just 11.4. He was productive with UNLV for two seasons in the Mountain West and managed to maintain that production in the SEC despite an injury.
The 3-point shooting numbers give some level of pause, but there’s not exactly a ton of guys running around who pass and hit shots at a rate above 40%. He’d need floor spacers around him, but that’d almost certainly be a priority for DeVries regardless.
Terrence Hill Jr, VCU
Hill Jr.’s passing numbers aren’t quite those of Thomas, but he took a second year leap at VCU as a sixth man this past season to help lead the Rams to an upset win over UNC in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. He averaged 15 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.8 assists while shooting 46.6% from the field and 37% from 3-point range in 25.1 minutes per game for the Rams this past season.
He stayed with VCU last offseason when Ryan Odom departed for Virginia with new head coach Phil Martelli Jr. electing to keep him on the roster when those around the program vouched for him on and off the court. He was outstanding against the Tar Heels in the first round with 34 points, five rebounds and five assists while going 7-10 from 3-point range.
If Indiana were to pursue, he’d have to adapt to Big Ten play and may assume a similar role as a bench guard. The production is there though.
Markus Burton, Notre Dame
Burton, however, would start immediately.
Hoosier fans, especially those around the state, are likely already familiar with Burton, who won Indiana Mr. Basketball out of Penn High School in Mishawaka back in 2023. He’s spent the past three seasons with Notre Dame with 68 starts in 69 games played.
He played in just ten games for the Fighting Irish this past season after suffering a season-ending left ankle injury against TCU in early December. Before that, he was averaging 18.5 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game. What really sticks out about that limited sample is that its statistical profile is comparable to that of Penn’s 2020-21 season at Drake.
Burton has been productive at the high-major level for awhile and has a pre-established connection with Indiana being from the state while offering both distribution and scoring.
John Blackwell, Wisconsin
So this one is definitely a fun what-if but a huge what-if. Greg Gard and Wisconsin have done as well with the guard position as anyone in the country as of late so Blackwell’s entry into the portal feels like a huge move that would necessitate a huge investment.
Blackwell averaged 19.1 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists while shooting 43% from the field and 38.9% from 3-point range in 33.8 minutes per game for the Badgers this past season. He’s spent the past two seasons playing alongside prolific scoring guards in Nick Boyd and John Tonje, playing a bit of a Robin role to their Batman.
Unlike the previous guards listed, Blackwell is more of a scorer than a distributor, but has excelled in that role over the past few seasons while developing in Madison. This is also, again, a bit of a reach as Blackwell may be looking for a more established program to spend his final season with.
Rowan Brumbaugh, Tulane
Brumbaugh has actually been connected to Indiana, so this could be more of a realistic option for the Hoosiers. He averaged 19.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists while shooting 45.2% from the field and 36% from 3-point range during this past season with Tulane, his second with the Green Wave and third overall college season after his freshman year at Georgetown.
He excelled at drawing fouls, shot reasonably well from deep on substantial volume and posted an assist rate of 25.5 to a turnover rate of 14.6. Like Burton, he’d give Indiana a backcourt option as both a scorer and distributor.
