Indiana men’s basketball is early enough into its 2026-27 campaign that there should be no real cause for concern. Sure, there have been obvious flaws through all three games, but that’s what one would expect from a group of guys that have never really played together before this past summer.
As somebody who pretends to be a rational basketball fan, these were the kinds of things I was repeating to myself throughout Monday’s game to Syracuse, when Indiana had stretches of looking like it had regressed
from last season.
One such stretch was the opening three minutes, when Indiana appeared to have nothing going for it in the half court offense. We saw this a lot last year, but then it was a matter of not having guys who could go get a bucket. As Jaeden Mustaf, Markus Burton, and Darren Harris proved last night, that’s not the case with this year’s roster.
Talent upgrade aside, one of the bigger differences from this season to last season is that most of the new players, including all three above, came from high major programs. Mustaf and Burton were some of the best players on bad teams, and it’s going to take time for them to learn to play alongside better players.
Burton is going to learn to know who he can trust and when, while also picking his spots to get a bucket himself. Same goes for Indiana’s other initiators, Mustaf and Bryce Lindsay.
Some of last night’s offensive struggles appeared to have a different cause though, one that’s a little more concerning as I look back at Darian DeVries’ coaching record. As the guards try to learn their own role, it doesn’t look like anyone knows what to do about Indiana’s two new bigs, Samet Yigitoglu and Aiden Sherrell.
At 7’2”, Yigitoglu is the kind of body Indiana desperately needed last year to grab rebounds and slow down opposing offenses in the paint. As an old school big whose hands could stand to be a little quicker, he’s also a kind of player DeVries has not coached a lot of so far in his career.
DeVries is in his ninth season as a Division I head coach, and so far there have only been two seasons when an old school big – one who doesn’t pop out to the perimeter as a 3-point threat – finished in his top three most used players, per KenPom. That was Darnell Brodie in his final two years at Drake, when Tucker DeVries was clearly the focal point of his offense.
In this context, it’s a little more concerning that a lot of the touches Yigitoglu got last night were so uninspiring. Rather than having plays drawn up for him, something we’ve seen DeVries work wonders with for his perimeter players, Yigitoglu was catching entry passes from Markus Burton while both were basically standing still.
For the more modern power forward types DeVries has had in the past, this would have been enough, maybe. Yigitoglu is not somebody who can create his own shots all that easily though, so getting him involved in the scoring is likely going to take some coaching, even if it’s just instructing guards to look his way on a drive to the basket.
Normally, I’d be willing to chalk up uninspired offensive concepts to both the newness of the team and the newness of the season. As in football, you don’t want to go too deep in the playbook too early in the season.
True as that is, comparing the first three games of last year to these last three games reveals another alarming trend. Whereas Indiana had at least 23 assists in each of its first three contests last year, the Hoosiers haven’t had more than 16 assists in any of its first three this season.
To me, this suggests that DeVries will need to tweak something with his offense to both get the bigs involved and to keep things running smoothly in the back court. Yes, this requires the guards getting used to playing together, but it also means a little more complexity when it comes to the actions he draws up for the guys inside.
In early November, there’s plenty of time to get things right before the games really start to matter. This might require DeVries doing things he hasn’t done yet in his career though, so it’s not as easy as simply tweaking the lineups or bench rotations.
Indiana probably has enough talent this year to overcome its offensive clunkiness, as we saw last night, but getting everyone involved would help unlock another level for this team, one that has potential to stand out in the Big Ten and nationally.
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