Indiana’s Mike Woodson has hilarious reaction to discovering Malik Reneau NIL burger deal

Big Ten Media Days offer reporters who cover the league — and, by extension, the millions of fans who follow its 14 basketball programs — the opportunity to learn more about the conference and its teams with the start of the season only weeks away.

For Mike Woodson, it gave him the chance to learn something about one of his players.

While speaking at Big Ten Media Days on Tuesday in Minneapolis, the third-year Indiana men’s basketball coach was asked about a Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deal one of his players has: Hoosiers forward Malik Reneau has a burger named after him at Indiana-based Big Woods.

What followed was a quintessentially Woodson exchange, with the coach dryly asking to find out more about the arrangement.

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“He has a burger? What the hell? He shouldn’t be eating burgers,” Woodson said. “Is it a veggie burger or something?”

The reporter who asked the question, Tyler Tachman of the Des Moines Register, replied that Reneau’s burger includes bacon and cheese (it also has onion rings and barbeque sauce).

“Oh, so you’re telling on him then?” the coach joked.

In fact, Woodson said he had not known about Reneau’s burger, though he certainly didn’t seem to mind hearing about it. He acknowledged that he has “a few spots” in Bloomington where he likes to eat and simply doesn’t know much “about all the other places.”

In March, Big Woods — a restaurant group with 10 locations throughout the state — announced it had formed an NIL collaboration with Reneau. In May, they debuted the Malik Reneau Burger. As part of the deal, $1 from every burger sold goes to Reneau’s chosen charity, Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Central Indiana.

Despite his association with a menu item that’s not exactly considered healthy, Reneau has transformed his body heading into his sophomore season. The 6-9 forward from Miami recently shared a social media post in which he noted that his body fat percentage is down 3.5 percentage points. His vertical jump is up 4.5 inches, along with an increase of 10 reps on pull-ups and 14 reps on the 185-pound bench press.

Last season, the former top-30 recruit (via 247Sports’ Composite rankings) played in all 35 of Indiana’s games, averaging 6.1 points and 3.7 rebounds in 14.9 minutes per game.

If nothing else, his coach has certainly noticed a difference in his physical frame from last season to this upcoming one — even with all of those burgers.

“His body fat is down and he has trimmed down, so hopefully he’s not eating too many of them,” Woodson said.