Indiana men’s basketball is set to take on Kansas State on Tuesday night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.
This matchup presents more of a challenge than the Hoosiers have faced up to
this point. Indiana is 5-0 on the season with one of those wins, a 100-77 thumping of Marquette in Chicago, being over a high-major program. The past two, Incarnate Word and Lindenwood, have been bogged down by anemic offensive performances.
If Indiana wants to beat Kansas State at home, it can’t come out struggling on offense. There’s a few reasons for this, but the largest is probably Wildcats junior guard P.J. Haggerty.
Haggerty transferred to Kansas State from Memphis this past offseason and is on a tear to start the 2025-26 campaign. He’s averaging a 28 points, which leads the country, 5.3 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game while shooting 40.9% from 3-point range and 56% from the field.
The Wildcats are coming off of two games at the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City, Missouri, where they beat Mississippi State 98-77 and narrowly fell to Nebraska 86-85. Haggerty scored 37 and 27 points in those matchups while dishing out eight and seven assists, respectively. He’s what makes that offense go.
He’s not getting shut down, he hasn’t scored less than 23 points in any of Kansas State’s matchups up to this point and had the Wildcats within striking distance in their lone loss.
Haggerty is shooting the ball if he has any amount of space to get it off. He let multiple lightly-contested 3s fly against Mississippi State and hit several. The Hoosiers have to keep him from getting comfortable doing that and stay up on him without getting too close to be susceptible to the drive.
Indiana is going to need a lot out of Tayton Conerway in this regard. He’s been an excellent on-ball defender throughout his career and has frustrated opposing ballhandlers into mistakes. But, given the Hoosiers’ lack of depth at guard, he’ll have to do so without fouling. Lamar Wilkerson and Conor Enright will be able to tag in to play some defense on Haggerty, but those guys are both starters who also can’t afford foul trouble.
Indiana’s defense as a whole has held firm, but they haven’t seen a team like Kansas State or a player like Haggerty yet. If the Hoosiers can slow him down, the path to victory becomes substantially clearer.
