Indiana will maintain its annual media day on Wednesday for its males’s and ladies’s basketball packages.
The ladies are coming off of Huge Ten championship season whereas the boys will try to exchange Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jalen Hood-Schifino and several other different key departures.
Listed here are 5 ideas on Indiana basketball forward of Wednesday’s media day:
Mike Woodson has stabilized the IU program however now should maintain success
Mike Woodson has not fulfilled his said objectives of successful a Huge Ten or nationwide championship in his first two seasons in Bloomington. Nevertheless it’s exhausting to take a look at the primary two seasons of the Woodson period as something lower than profitable.
Woodson inherited a program with out an id or clear path. He’s reached the NCAA event twice and recorded a second-place Huge Ten end final winter. That’s progress for a program that was nowhere near March Insanity in Archie Miller’s remaining season.
However the subsequent step for IU basketball underneath Woodson would be the most troublesome.
To proceed displaying progress in an period of faculty basketball the place rebuilding just isn’t an possibility because of the switch portal, Indiana must solidify the baseline expectation for this system transferring ahead. An NCAA event look ought to be the minimal. As ought to a top-half end within the Huge Ten standings.
If the Hoosiers attain the NCAA event this season, it is going to be the primary time IU basketball has reached the event in three consecutive seasons in 20 years. The items are in place to get it achieved. Regardless of dropping an All-American, a first-round NBA draft decide and several other others, there may be NCAA event expertise on the roster. Now it’s as much as Woodson and the teaching employees to ship outcomes for a 3rd straight season.
What Teri Moren has constructed is a exceptional story
As Teri Moren prepares for her tenth season as the ladies’s basketball coach in Bloomington, it’s acceptable to acknowledge how far this system has come within the final decade.
Earlier than Moren’s arrival, the ladies’s program hadn’t reached the NCAA event since 2002. Underneath Moren, the Hoosiers have been there 5 occasions, together with the final three seasons.
Had the 2020 event not been canceled, this system can be coming off of 5 consecutive NCAA event appearances.
The gamers come and go – and there have been a number of standouts – however Moren has constructed a program constructed for long-term success. She’ll change into this system’s all-time winningest coach this season, has earned a big pay elevate, and this system is filling extra seats every season in Meeting Corridor.
This season, Indiana will once more compete close to the highest of the Huge Ten with a powerful returning nucleus that features Mackenzie Holmes, Sydney Parrish, Chloe Moore-McNeil and Sara Scalia.
Indiana’s guard depth is a query mark
Indiana added a number of items final spring that can play main roles this season.
Freshman Mackenzie Mgbako arrives as a prime 10 nationwide recruit, the highest-ranked prospect to pick the Hoosiers since Romeo Langford. Transfers Kel’el Ware, Anthony Walker and Payton Sparks will all play a task in a revamped frontcourt rotation.
However what the Hoosiers didn’t add – one other guard – is most regarding as observe begins this month.
Indiana returns Xavier Johnson and Trey Galloway however wants confirmed contributors past that duo.
CJ Gunn shot simply 2-for-24 on 3s final season, Anthony Leal has hardly ever seen the ground underneath Woodson and Gabe Cupps is a freshman who will want time to acclimate within the Huge Ten. And Jakai Newton is recovering from surgical procedure that has put his availability doubtful this season.
The Hoosiers tried to land an impression guard within the spring however struck out. That places quite a lot of strain on Johnson and Galloway to boost their stage of play. Gunn is the strongest candidate to take a step ahead this season and Indiana wants him to take action.
There’s intrigue about Indiana’s type of play with out Jackson-Davis
Success within the final two seasons was constructed on the excellence of Jackson-Davis, who’s now getting into his rookie season with the Golden State Warriors.
Woodson will now have to regulate to life with out Jackson-Davis and work out how he needs to play offensively with no clear go-to possibility.
The Hoosiers haven’t taken sufficient 3s in current seasons however don’t have the personnel to vary that reality this winter. Indiana’s prime three 3-point shooters when it comes to makes final season – Hood-Schifino, Tamar Bates and Miller Kopp – are all gone.
The ball will likely be in Johnson’s arms, and the stability he should strike is pivotal to success. Indiana will want Johnson to attain, however he should additionally create scoring alternatives for others.
The wild card, in fact, is Mgbako.
He’s a three-level scorer who created his shot frequently as a McDonald’s All-American. If the scoring from Mgbako interprets from day one, it ought to open up the ground for Malik Reneau, Ware, Johnson and Galloway and create a extra balanced scoring assault.
Make it a degree to observe Holmes in her remaining season
Changing Grace Berger is a problem for Moren and the ladies’s program. She was probably the greatest gamers in this system’s historical past and simply accomplished a profitable rookie season within the WNBA with the Indiana Fever.
However even with out Berger, expectations are sky-high once more. And Holmes is a main motive for that.
Now in her fifth season of faculty basketball, she’s one of many prime gamers within the sport. And her strategy to the sport is business-like. There’s no flash with Holmes, however there’s loads of manufacturing.
She was a first-team All-American final season with averages of twenty-two.3 factors, 7.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per sport. Her resolution to return for a fifth season locations Indiana again within the combine to compete for a Huge Ten championship and a excessive seed within the NCAA event.
When you’ve got but to have an opportunity to observe Holmes in individual over her first 4 seasons, make it a degree to take action this winter.
Filed to: Mike Woodson, Teri Moren