Indiana
2024-25 Indiana non-conference opponent preview: Sam Houston State
Indiana’s 2024-25 non-conference schedule was finalized on July 9 and Inside the Hall will have a team-by-team look at each opponent. Today: Sam Houston State.
Indiana’s eighth non-conference game – and first contest after the Battle 4 Atlantis – should provide a formidable test.
Sam Houston State, which finished last season 142nd in the KenPom ratings and 128th in Bart Torvik, has NCAA tournament aspirations entering the 2024-25 campaign.
The Bearkats were listed as a No. 12 seed in a CBS Sports bracketology in early July and are currently projected as the 114th-best team nationally for next season by Torvik.
Sam Houston State finished last season with the 126th-best defense nationally, according to Pomeroy’s adjusted defensive efficiency numbers. In his current projections for the 2024-25 season, Torvik has the Bearkats 130th offensively nationally next season and 111th defensively.
Chris Mudge enters his second at the helm in Huntsville, Texas, after finishing with a 21-12 last season and winning the regular season Conference USA title. The 40-year-old was a student manager under Rick Barnes at Texas and has been at Sam Houston State since 2010 as an assistant (2020-2021) and the associate head coach for two seasons before taking over as head coach.
Mudge again has a roster capable of competing for the conference title as he returns four of the top five scorers from last season. The most notable contributor the Bearkats lost was second-leading scorer Davon Barnes, who left for Ole Miss via the transfer portal.
Leading scorer Lamar Wilkerson is back after exploring his options in the transfer portal. The 6-foot-4 senior guard averaged 13.8 points and shot 34.7 percent on 3s and 83.1 percent from the line last season.
Damon Nicholas Jr., another 6-foot-4 senior guard, returns after leading the Bearkats in steals and averaging 8.1 points a season ago. Nichols Jr. started 28 of the team’s 33 games and averaged 1.4 steals, shooting 36.8 percent on 3s.
Brennen Burns, a Division II transfer, should be in the mix for the starting point guard spot. The 5-foot-10 guard arrives from SE Oklahoma State, where he averaged 17 points, 6.7 assists, 3.8 rebounds and 1.5 steals in 33 minutes per game. Burns shot 39.6 percent from distance.
Up front, 6-foot-8 senior Cameron Huefner is back and should have the first shot at starting at the four. Last season, Huefner averaged 7.8 points and 3.1 rebounds in 19.4 minutes per game and started seven games.
Sam Houston State added a big man from the transfer portal in Kalifa Sakho, who arrives from Utah State. The 6-foot-11 senior averaged 2.7 points and 1.7 rebounds in 10.2 minutes per game last season for the Aggies.
Guard Marcus Boykin, a 6-foot-1 senior, started 11 games last season and shot 37.8 percent on 3s while averaging 7.3 points in 18.4 minutes per game. Josiah Hammons, a 6-foot-2 guard transfer from Incarnate Word, should also figure heavily into the guard rotation. Hammons averaged 12.5 points and shot 35.5 percent on 3s a season ago.
Dorian Finister, a 6-foot-5 wing, brings experience from the high-major level. Finister averaged nearly 13 minutes last season at Kansas State and averaged 2.8 points and 2.3 rebounds for the Wildcats. Kian Scroggins, a 6-foot-7 senior, is also back for the Bearkats. Scroggins started five times last season and averaged six points and led Sam Houston State in rebounds at 5.9 per game.
Given the strong mix of returnees and transfer portal additions, Mudge has the personnel to regularly go eight or nine deep with this roster. Eight of the top nine in the projected roster are seniors, which should make the Bearkats one of the most experienced mid-major teams in the country.
While the name Sam Houston State doesn’t stand out on paper, the Bearkats are the type of non-conference opponent who is more than capable of playing spoiler. Of Indiana’s eight confirmed non-conference games, Sam Houston State is the second highest ranked in the Torvik projections behind South Carolina.
Filed to: Sam Houston State Bearkats
PLAINFIELD, Ind. (WISH) — Suspects fled a Plainfield bank after it was robbed Tuesday afternoon, police say.
Plainfield Police Department was called at 2:10 p.m. Tuesday to the robbery of a bank in progress at Chase Bank, 807 Southfield Drive. That’s southwest of the intersection of Quaker Boulevard and Stafford Road/East County Road 450 South in the Hendricks County town.
Deputy Chief Ryan Salisbury of the Plainfield Police Department said detectives were working on the case.
The police department posted on social media on Tuesday night that no one was hurt in the robbery, and the suspects, who were not in custody, fled prior to the arrival of first responders.
INDIANAPOLIS — Sophie Cunningham wants to emphasize she’s perfectly happy with the Indiana Fever. She just wishes she could be locked down longer.
Cunningham, who signed a one-year, $665,000 deal with the Indiana Fever for 2026, said on her podcast, “Show Me Something,” on Tuesday night that she was frustrated with the free agency process in the condensed offseason.
She shook her head vehemently when her co-host West Wilson asked if the contract was better than she thought it would be, then said in part, “It’s tough because I came off an injury … I’m not even going to lie to you, that’s a little, kind of, frustrating.”
Fans on social media largely took that as she did not get interest from other teams, she didn’t want to return to the Fever, or she was unhappy with the salary she got.
She shut those thoughts down on social media Monday night, then expounded on her frustrations with local media at Fever training camp on Tuesday morning.
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“I think Twitter kind of blew up last night about a comment I made on my podcast. But that wasn’t what I meant at all,” Cunningham said. “I think if you listen to the full clip, you really understand that I just wanted to be somewhere for more than one year. I’m almost 30 years old. I want to have a home. I want to get established. And I would love to get established in a place like Indiana.”
The Fever prioritized as much financial flexibility as possible this offseason because of the new EPIC clause, which allows both Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark to renegotiate their fourth-year salaries up to the max with an extension. Boston’s salary was bumped to $1 million in 2025, and she will make the supermax from 2027-29. Clark is eligible to negotiate up to the max in 2027, and both Clark and Boston could be making the supermax starting in 2028.
Only Lexie Hull and Monique Billings got major multi-year deals with the Fever out of free agency. Hull signed for $765,000 in 2026 and $803,250 in 2027, per Her Hoop Stats, while Billings got $800,000 for both 2026 and 2027. Damiris Dantas is the only other player that got a multi-year deal out of free agency, but that was for the minimum cap hit of $277,500.
Kelsey Mitchell signed a one-year, $1.4 million supermax, Cunningham returned on a one-year deal, and Myisha Hines-Allen and Tyasha Harris each signed one-year deals.
Cunningham added that she got multi-year offers from other teams, but chose to stay with Indiana on a one-year deal.
She wanted to return to Indiana, she said, because of friendships she created with her teammates and the potential they showed, even after six separate season-ending injuries on the roster. She is also closer to her hometown of Columbia, Missouri.
“When you find a group of girls who really make you fall in love with basketball games and you enjoy it, you enjoy them, not only on the court, but off the court, like, you want to hold on to that,” Cunningham said. “ … it was never about the money, it was just about the years, because I wanted to be with them. And God forbid a girl loves her teammates, you know what I mean?”
Cunningham is also coming off a major knee injury after she tore her MCL in August 2025. She was ruled out for the rest of the 2025 season and got surgery in Indianapolis, then had a six-month rehab process before she was cleared in February.
Since then, she has been ramping back up as much as possible, including playing one-on-one, three-on-three, plyometrics, and everything she does to get ready for a regular season.
Still, she said, she’ll need to actually play to get back into full basketball shape.
“Basketball shape is just different,” Cunningham said. “You can run as many suicides as you want, you can get your butt kicked however you want, but until you’re out here playing, you’re never fully going to be in game shape until you’re playing games.”
Chloe Peterson is the Indiana Fever beat reporter for IndyStar. Reach her at chloe.peterson@indystar.com or follow her on X at @chloepeterson67. Get IndyStar’s Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Caitlin Clark Fever newsletter. Subscribe to IndyStar TV: Fever for in-depth analysis, behind-the-scenes coverage and more.
CLOVERDALE, Ind. (WKRC) – Authorities in Indiana found a semi trailer loaded up with hundreds of pounds of suspected cocaine.
According to a statement issued by the Indiana State Police (ISP), 27-year-old Harmandeep Singh of Bakersfield, California was taken into custody after nearly 400 pounds of suspected cocaine were reportedly found in the trailer of a commercial truck.
Per the statement, an ISP trooper seized the suspected cocaine during a traffic stop on Interstate 70 in Putnam County, authorities said.
The stop occurred Tuesday morning near the 37-mile marker, just east of Cloverdale, after a commercial motor vehicle was observed exceeding the posted speed limit.
Police said Singh displayed several indicators of possible criminal activity during the encounter. After obtaining consent to search the vehicle, troopers discovered multiple duffel bags and cardboard boxes in the trailer containing approximately 392 pounds (178 kilograms) of suspected cocaine.
Authorities estimated the street value of the drugs at about $9 million.
Singh was taken into custody and taken to the Putnam County Jail, where he is being held on a $30,000 cash bond.
He faces the following preliminary charges, per the post:
- Possession of a narcotic drug
Formal charges will be determined by the Putnam County prosecutor.
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Indiana State Police said drug interdiction remains a priority, with troopers focusing on major highways to disrupt the flow of illegal narcotics into the state.
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