Gregg DoyelIndianapolis Star
The rats were jumping off the Good Ship IU Basketball this spring, weren’t they? Sorry — is that too harsh? Buck up, people, because it’s not just an analogy, but biology: When a ship sinks, the rats jump off. Was that you, as February turned to March and the losses mounted and #iubb fan anger mounted and five-star future NBA wing Liam McNeeley, the only player in the Hoosiers’ 2024 recruiting class, dismounted?
Yeah, that was you. It was me, too. It’s an analogy, it’s biology, plus there’s this: Rats aren’t so bad. We had a pet rat when I was a kid in Mississippi. My brilliant sister went to one of her gifted summer camps, this one at Duke, and when she came home she had the camp’s pet rat. She won the damn thing. Named it Po, as I recall, and that rat was a fine addition to the family.
Well, it was fine until it bit my dad on the finger. He’s swinging that rat from his hand, blood flying everywhere and the rat going nowhere, and the whole thing was just so traumatic, and if this sounds like February and the first half of March of the 2023-24 IU basketball season, well, your ears are in fine working order.
But then, in Bloomington, came the rest of March.
And April.
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And you’ve got to give credit to IU coach Mike Woodson, you really do, because the man has pulled off a series of magic tricks. He reinvented himself as a college coach, three years into his tenure. He remade his roster in 27 days. Entering an offseason where anything seemed possible, almost all of it bad, he turned a mediocre, misshapen roster into something that looks formidable.
And he has brought the rats — all of us — back on board.
Oumar Ballo, Bryson Tucker? Bang! Bang!
The good news came in happy explosions, like fireworks above Bloomington.
March 21, boom! IU power forward Malik Reneau, thought to be a goner in the transfer portal, announces he’s coming back.
March 30, boom! IU small forward Mackenzie Mgbako, thought to be a possible entrant into the 2024 NBA draft — or transfer portal departure — announces he’s coming back.
April 1, boom! Five-star recruit Bryson Tucker, a 6-6 wing from Arlington, Va., announces he’s signing with IU.
April 13, boom! Washington State guard Myles Rice, the Pac-12’s Freshman of the Year after averaging 14.8 points and 3.1 assists in 2023-24, announces his transfer to IU.
April 16, boom! Arizona’s Oumar Ballo (12.9 points, 10.1 rebounds, 1.3 blocks), a 7-0 center considered the No. 1 overall target in the transfer portal, announces his transfer to IU.
April 20, boom! Stanford guard Kanaan Carlyle, who averaged 11.5 ppg as a Pac-12 freshman, announces his transfer to IU.
April 26, boom! Illinois’ Luke Goode, a 6-7 small forward from Homestead High and career 38.8% shooter from 3-point range in three college seasons, announces his transfer to IU.
After suffering none of the catastrophic losses feared after last season, IU will have to replace just one starter, center Kel’el Ware, whose surge into the 2024 NBA draft will only help Woodson’s recruiting. Since we’re paying such close attention to words — that rat stuff really has you going, doesn’t it? — pay attention to these eight you just read:
IU will have to replace just one starter.
But IU will replace more than that. These incoming guys are just too good to sit.
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Ballo is starting. That’s a lock. He’s 7-0, 260 pounds of domination around the basket, and if that’s where he stays for 25-30 minutes per game — and it will be — nobody will be complaining. He’s a career 64.6% shooter on offense, and an intimidating rim protector on defense. That’s your five man.
Reneau returns as the power forward, and if Woodson made you nervous this offseason when he vowed “to play two bigs, just to test it,” stop. Know who else plays two bigs? Purdue. Zach Edey and Trey Kaufman-Renn started there and the Boilers reached the 2024 NCAA title game, and while you’re right, Ballo is not Edey, here’s something else: Reneau is more skilled than Kaufman-Renn. IU’s two bigs will be just fine, for as long as they’re on the court together.
But the options for Woodson run the gamut. This is the best roster he’s ever had at IU, top to bottom, and it’s not close. No, he doesn’t have Trayce Jackson-Davis anymore, but TJD didn’t have this kind of supporting cast on that 2023 NCAA tournament team, either. Mgbako or Tucker or both will start on the wing, with Goode in reserve. Rice or Carlyle or fifth-year senior Trey Galloway — but not all three — will start in the backcourt.
Coming off the bench for IU? Anthony Leal, a really solid college player at both ends; Gabe Cupps, who started 22 games last season; and Jakai Newton, a big-bodied guard — 6-3, 203 pounds — who redshirted last season after knee surgery but is ready to go. In whatever order you prefer, those are IU’s ninth, 10th and 11th players.
The IU fan base, so unhappy for so much of the late winter, has blossomed into springtime fawning. A huge crowd showed up for an annual May booster event at Huber’s Orchard and Winery in southern Indiana, with attendance rising from 600 last year to 850 last month. Since we’re already doing English (analogy) and science (biology) today, here’s some arithmetic: That’s a 41% IU fan increase from 2023 to ’24.
And those folks came to Borden, Ind., ready to pay cash or credit (Venmo?) to support one of the finest-tuned NIL machines in college basketball, Hoosiers for Good and Hoosiers Connect — “the official NIL collectives of IU athletics.”
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That whole thing still gives me the willies, collectives and the transfer portal turning college sports into free agency, but this is the world today. A school either raises the funds necessary to attract the best athletic talent, or it does not. IU basketball has raised those funds. Mike Woodson and his staff have used those funds, and their recruiting acumen, to stock what had been, for a basketball school of this stature, some empty cupboards.
In three months' time, Woodson has gone from a coach who looked to have one foot out the door — his “the hell with this” ejection late in the Hoosiers’ season-ending Big Ten tournament loss — to one overseeing a preseason Big Ten favorite and Top 20 team. It’s everyone aboard the Good Ship IU Basketball, rats and all, because analogies don’t matter and biology doesn’t matter and even recent history doesn’t matter. The 2024-25 Hoosiers are loaded, because magic Mike Woodson is making the math work.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStaror atwww.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
