Indiana men’s basketball’s first season under Darian DeVries came to an end when the Hoosiers didn’t receive a bid for the 2026 NCAA Tournament. The Hoosiers finished 18-14 overall and 9-11 in Big Ten play, with a late collapse ending their March Madness hopes.
We’ll be recapping and analyzing DeVries’ first season in a few different ways from individual players to other lineups and trends.
Tayton Conerway
- Final statline: 9.5 PTS, 3.3 AST, 2.8 REB
- Role: I honestly don’t know.
Stats provided by KenPom, BartTorvik or CBB Analytics.
Initially in the starting lineup beside fellow point guard,
Conor Enright, Conerway brought athleticism and speed to Indiana’s backcourt that it desperately needed. Even by the end of the season, with his starting spot having been taken, Conerway ended with the second highest-usage rate on the team, behind only Lamar Wilkerson.
While Conerway dealt with some injuries that kept him out of a few games, he seemed to be on a shorter leash when he returned to the rotation. Over the last ten games of Indiana’s season, he saw more than 10 minutes just five times.
This limited role is hard to square with Conerway’s advanced analytics. Per BartTorvik, he had the fifth highest efficiency rating, scoring higher on defense than DeVries’ preferred point guard, Enright. He also had the highest assist rate on the team, beating out Enright by about 6%.
Given his production in limited minutes and the fact that he had a skillset that his teammates lacked, it’s hard to see why Conerway didn’t play more given everything we’re seeing.
Regardless, Conerway’s inability to stay on the floor cost Indiana. He wasn’t a perfect player, but Wilkerson was the only one on Indiana’s roster even approaching perfection, and everyone besides Conerway was allowed to play through their mistakes.
The Hoosiers had extremely slim margins of error down the stretch, and it hurt the team to not have his quick burst and passing ability in the offense. Once the Hoosiers fell a win or two short of the NCAA Tournament, Conerway’s role and minutes emerged as one of the bigger puzzles of the 2025-26 Indiana team.
