We are counting down the days to the start of the college basketball season.
If you’re reading this on the day is was published, we have 47 days to the official start of College Basketball, and 36 days until we can see the team in action against K-State (presuming it’s televised).
The Full Non-Conference Schedule:
- October 23rd — at Kansas State (exhibition)
- October 29th — at UNLV (exhibition)
- November 3rd — vs Cleveland State
- November 6th — vs Saint Louis (in St. Louis)
- November 9th — vs SIU-Edwardsville
- November 15th — vs Marquette (in Chicago)
- November 18th — vs Alcorn State
- November 20th — vs Le Moyne
- November 24th — vs Evansville
- November 27th — vs Arkansas Pine Bluff
- December 1st — vs Pittsburgh (ACC-SEC Challenge)
- December 6th — vs Kansas (in Kansas City)
- December 12th — vs Nebraska (in Kansas City)
- December 18th — at Indiana
- December 20th — vs Illinois (in St. Louis)
- December 22nd — vs Chicago State
After the last few years of a poor lineup of Q4 games in the non-conference schedule, Missouri pulled a 180 and have schedule as well as anyone in the country. On top of playing Illinois and Kansas as previously scheduled,
the Tigers are playing neutral court matchups against SLU, Marquette, Nebraska, and a road game at Indiana. There’s no question Dennis Gates stepped it up.
Let’s Meet: the Indiana Hoosiers
The Nebraska Football of College Hoops! It’s time!
Mizzou took a one and done deal to travel to Indiana and play the Hoosiers. Perhaps better known as State Seminary in the 1820s, IU is now over 200 years old if you include the early seminary years.
The Hoosiers threw a curveball to the first sport fielded at the University, quite literally. While everyone else was starting things up with football, Indiana fielded a baseball team first. In 1899 the Hoosiers joined Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin in the Western Conference, the predecessor of the Big 10.
In 1900 the school formed its first basketball team and hired a young whippersnapper named Bob Knight to coach the team. I’m kidding of course, Knight wasn’t hired until 1971. By that time the program had already won two separate national titles, in 1940, and in 1953. Both wins were under Hall of Fame coach Branch McCracken.
Most people remember the Hoosiers under Knight, thrown chairs and everything. He went to a Final Four in year 2, and went undefeated with a national title in 1976. The 70s and 80s were a terrific time to be a Hoosier fan, Indiana would win two more titles in 1981 and in 1987. The NCAA Tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975, and after that expansion Indiana missed just three tourneys under Knight, in ‘77, ‘79, and ‘85. By then the tournament expanded to 64 teams and IU was always a participant.
But as good of a ball coach as Knight was, he was equally terrible of a person. And IU eventually had to fire him when video of him choking one of his players at practice emerged.
Post Knight, things have been uneven. Mike Davis took the Hoosiers to a National Final in 2002. Kelvin Sampson was hired but kept texting recruits when he wasn’t supposed to and got fired. The program cratered under sanctions following Sampson’s exit and Tom Crean built it back up. But despite winning the Big 10 twice, he never broke through to a Final Four and was fired for Archie Miller. Miller never went to the NCAA Tournament, so they fired him and hired Mike Woodson. Woodson was there for four years and missed the tournament his last two years.
Enter another coaching change!
Head Coach | Darian DeVries | 2nd Season 18-14
Indiana’s most successful coaches were all from Indiana, so it would make sense they’d go after an Iowa native to fix things in the post-NIL era. As a player, DeVries played at Northern Iowa and made his way to Creighton to coach under Dana Altman, then stuck around for the Greg McDermott era. In all he was at Creighton for 17 years before taking the head coaching job at Drake in 2018.
Drake had been in the doldrums, they hadn’t won 20 games since 2008, and had to move fast to replace Niko Medved who had only been there for one year.
DeVries took over and won 24 games in his first year, and in year 3 they won 26 games, and headed back to the NCAA Tournament. In all he was there for six seasons, made three NCAA Tournaments, and won 150 games.
Led by his son Tucker the last three years, DeVries parlayed his success at Drake into the job at West Virginia. The fit in Morgantown may have been a little off, so when the Indiana job came open DeVries made quick work to move things back closer to home.
Last season the Hoosiers again missed the NCAA Tournament, meaning they’ve been left out in eight of the last 10 tournaments.
The money is there, and DeVries went hard into the transfer portal to try and build a type of roster Hoosier fans feel can contend again.
Series History | Tied 9-9
The last matchup between these two teams happened 22 years ago, things were falling apart in Columbia. After a disappointing 2004 season, Missouri had lost three games in the early going of the 04-05 season. Linas Kleiza was doing as much as he could, but a 6-4 team welcomed another struggling team in the Indiana Hoosiers to Mizzou Arena in mid-December. What ensued could vaguely be called basketball as the two teams combined for just one three point make in what would end up a 56-53 Tigers win.
The win was Mizzou’s third in a row, and fifth of the last six going back to… 1969. From 1950 to 1969 the two teams played 12 times, going 5-7 against the national powerhouse.
But there were zero games from 1969 until the two teams met in the NCAA Tournament for a first round matchup in 1995. Most fans will easily remember that NCAA Tournament and what Tyus Edney did, but few will recall Norm Stewart took down Bob Knight in round one. Paul O’Linney scored 22 points and Kendrick Moore came off the bench to score 15 more, while the Tigers defense frustrated Indiana star forward Alan Henderson into a 6-17 shooting night from inside the arc.
Snyder signed up to play the Hoosiers four times in his six seasons, losing the first to Knight, before winning the last three against Mike Davis.
What about the team now?
Regardless of how things have gone, I don’t think Indiana fans have altered the expectations much. So DeVries had a lot of money to go portal shopping with, and the results were… well they were ok.
And by ok, I mean Indiana should certainly be a tournament team. Their early BartTorvik.com projections have them 28th overall, which is good but it’s like 6-7 seed territory and not Final Four caliber.
There were a couple marquee commitments, perhaps the most important one being former Notre Dame scoring guard Markus Burton. After averaging over 20 points per game as a sophomore, Burton struggled to stay healthy his junior year, as he played in only 10 games. He played against Missouri, though, and scored 18 points as the Fighting Irish upset the Tigers early in the season. Burton gives Indiana just what they need, an experienced ball handler who can fascilitate and score the ball.
Rounding out the back court should be Duke transfer Darren Harris, and Bryce Lindsay, a former Villanova/James Madison/Texas A&M guard. Lindsay projects as more of a floor spacer, while Harris is much more of a three level threat, who just found himself behind a deep cadre of guards at Duke.
In the front court is IU’s only real returning player, sophomore Trent Sisley, who scored just 4.2 points and 2.8 rebounds in about 13 minutes of action a night. He’ll have to contend for minutes with former Alabama big man Aiden Sherrell. A Michigan native, many thought he’d be heading back home but the Hoosiers got in the way and secured a commitment for a versatile big man who scored 11.1 points and collected 6.2 rebounds for the Tide last season. Sherrell is perhaps the most high value player they got out of the portal. But don’t overlook (even though it’s hard to see around him) 7’2”, 270 lb SMU transfer Samet Yigitoglu. He’s a skilled player who is an adept passer for a big, and obviously tough around the rim.
Indiana is also hoping to get a 5th year from Sam Alexis, who played a solid rotational big role for them, and would fit in nicely with Yigitoglu and Sherrell.
This will be a good test for the Tigers. Assembly Hall is a terrific basketball environment and the building will be buzzing. Indiana only plays one other high major at home in Non-conference play, and that’s UCF. So this will be a big game for them as well.
