BLOOMINGTON – College basketball’s transfer window will emerge from its Final Four-enforced slowdown at the end of this week, when the dead period lifts and visits can resume.
Indiana, still light six scholarship players with plenty of work to do, will dive right back in. The Hoosiers are lining up visitors for the coming weekends, with a heavy emphasis on positions and roles of need. IndyStar examines those needs, and some names to know as IU’s roster-building efforts accelerate.
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Needs
∎ Backcourt impact: An already thin guard rotation lost Xavier Johnson (eligibility) and CJ Gunn (portal) once the season ended. Trey Galloway gives Mike Woodson proven ball-handling and creativity, but he cannot run a one-man show.
Indiana needs shooting and scoring punch, both, here. Players who can get on the ball and make plays, for themselves or others, and players who can stretch the floor in ways last season’s roster too often could not. Myles Rice hands Woodson a point guard with as many as three years of eligibility remaining, upping the Hoosiers’ depth of creativity and giving Woodson another lead guard around which to build his ball-screen offense. Now, Indiana must add players for whom Rice can create.
∎ Backcourt depth: Simplistic, yes. But there’s an extent to which Indiana just needs bodies in its backcourt. Galloway and Gabe Cupps are the only guards returning to play at least 50% of available minutes last season. The growth of Anthony Leal’s role in Big Ten play shouldn’t be overlooked, but it’s not by itself a cure-all. Rice should see serious minutes. He shouldn’t be alone.
∎ Floor spacing: It’s long past time Indiana had the tools necessary to shoot 3-pointers with both accuracy and efficiency. That means adding at least two players with an established track record shooting the ball well. It also means bolstering the roster with players used to the kind of volume the Hoosiers so desperately need.
∎ Rim protection: Whether Woodson intends to play Malik Reneau at the four or the five next season remains unclear. But the Hoosiers need length and rebounding impact in any event, whether from the bench or in the starting lineup. Woodson has always valued a shot-altering center who could rebound at volume, particularly at the defensive end. Whether that player starts or sees major bench minutes, IU needs at least one big addition here.
Names to know
We’ll group these names by position, and list them alphabetically. The usual disclaimer: This is by no means an exhaustive list, and it will be updated. The portal moves fast. Circumstances change rapidly in college basketball. Just ask Mitch Barnhart. Let’s roll.
COMMITMENTS
The reigning Pac-12 freshman of the year, Rice pulled the strings for surprise package Washington State during the Cougars’ best season in a decade and a half last winter. He averaged 14.8 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game in his first competitive collegiate season. Rice was not just one of Washington State’s best players — if not the Cougars’ best — but also among the Pac-12’s best creators.
Now, Rice is Bloomington-bound. If Woodson had a wish list at point guard, Rice probably topped it. That’s one wish come true.
GUARDS
It’s not surprising to see a lot of IU’s focus right now trained on the backcourt. As previously discussed, the Hoosiers need both depth and impact as they rebuild their guard rotation, and that could mean trying to take as many as four guards out of the portal this cycle.
Kanaan Carlyle
The Stanford transfer made honorable mention All-Freshman Team in the Pac-12 last winter, averaging 11.5 points and 2.7 assists per game. He appeared in 23 games for the Cardinal in his lone season in Palo Alto, making close to 78% of his free throws along the way. Carlyle shot just 32% from 3 (a clean 32-of-100), and he needs to improve his finishing on 2s as well. But he would add some creativity — he finished conference play last year 11th in assist rate and a remarkable third in possessions used. He’s comfortable with the ball in his hands.
Carlyle has a visit scheduled for next weekend.
Ryan Conwell
The Pike grad started his college career at South Florida before transferring to Indiana State, and now he’s in the portal following Josh Schertz’s exit for Saint Louis. It stands to reason some of Schertz’s players will follow him from Terre Haute, but if Conwell is interested in IU, it seems likely IU would reciprocate. He checks a lot of boxes for the Hoosiers, who would like to get him to campus.
Connor Essegian
Essegian is an interesting case. He was a revelation for Wisconsin two years ago, averaging 11.7 points per game while shooting a tick under 36% from behind the arc. All that dried up last winter, when the Central Noble grad saw his minutes average cut from 27.4 per game to just 7.3. Essegian never found his 3-point shot or his scoring touch as a sophomore, and he didn’t play double-digit minutes in any of the Badgers’ last 11 games. He undeniably ticks certain boxes (shooting chiefly among them) for Indiana, but the Hoosiers would need to be confident last season was the exception, not the rule. Essegian has already taken a handful of visits, though none to Bloomington, at least not yet.
Connor Hickman
There’s an argument Hickman might have been a high-major guard out of Bloomington South in 2021, if COVID hadn’t disrupted that class’s recruiting timeline so dramatically. Hickman landed at Bradley, where he scored 953 points and hit 37.3% of his 3-pointers across three seasons. Last winter was his best — Hickman averaged 14.5 points and nearly three assists per game, for a 23-win Bradley team that finished third in the Missouri Valley Conference and reached the NIT.
Hickman wrapped his Indiana visit Sunday, then followed that with a planned trip to Cincinnati. It’s widely believed those are his final two, with a decision likely to come soon.
Leland Walker
Another Indianapolis native on this list, Walker popped up early in the portal cycle in connection with Indiana. The North Central grad averaged 15.4 points and 4.1 assists per game last season as a sophomore at Eastern Kentucky, and his two-year numbers suggest he’s ready for a step up in competitive level.
Things have since slowed with Walker and the Hoosiers (not uncommon in a calendar that moves in fits and starts), but there are plenty of ways Walker fits what IU needs. This recruitment could come down to roster spots and playing time, as much as anything.
WINGS/FORWARDS
IU already has good options here, with Mackenzie Mgbako confirmed returning and five-star Bryson Tucker inbound after a whirlwind recruitment culminated in his commitment last week. Indiana’s need here might be style-dependent — if Woodson wants to play a smaller, more positionally fluid brand of basketball next season, more wing depth is a requirement.
Ben Humrichous
It’s been a remarkable rise for Humrichous. The Tipton native was playing at Huntington University two years ago, then spent last year starring at Evansville before portaling this window. In 23 games with the Purple Aces, Humrichous hit 53-of-126 3s (42.1%) while finishing 2s at a respectable rate and taking on an increased load in conference play. A 6-9 forward with tweener skills, Humrichous finished last season with a true shooting percentage of 0.613, which would’ve ranked him second among Hoosiers behind only Kel’el Ware in 2023-24.
Adou Thiero
Thiero was once a target for Indiana from the high school ranks. After two seasons at Kentucky — the second more productive than the first — Thiero is in the portal, and it’s no surprise to see IU among the schools interested. Thiero has a fascinating backstory as a late-blooming high school recruit still perceived to be scratching at his potential in college. He may only need one more year, with NBA teams eyeing him as a potential draft prospect in 2025.
Cade Tyson
Officially listed as a guard/forward, Tyson is one of the most intriguing and sought-after up transfers in the portal right now. The 6-7 North Carolina native averaged 16.2 points and 5.9 rebounds last season at Belmont, hitting 46.5% of his 3s. That was after shooting 41.7% from distance as a freshman in Nashville. Does Indiana still need the kind of impact wing presence Tyson would provide, with Mgbako back and Tucker in the fold? Tough to say, but best practice if Tyson was interested would probably be to take talent first, ask questions later.
CENTERS
Not a ton of names here, which isn’t surprising. IU might only really need one out-and-out five, and it’s not clear (as previously discussed) whether that player would be an automatic starter. But there are a couple meaningful names here, including confirmed visitors, and Woodson’s defensive setup has always relied at least one rim-protecting high-volume rebounder.
Oumar Ballo
The Arizona transfer is among the most recognizable big men in the country. A dominant force, particularly defensively and on the glass, for the Wildcats across the last two seasons, Ballo is considered among the best transfers in his class, if not the best, full stop. Ballo is reportedly considering a handful of schools, with visits set up for this week. He arrived in Bloomington for the first of those Sunday night and by Monday was posting from his trip on social media. Indiana could be in as good of a spot to land the 7-foot center as any team in the country.
Pharrel Payne
IU’s staff will know Payne well, having planned for him these past two seasons at Minnesota. Payne was rarely a volume scorer in the post in Minneapolis (though he did average 10 points per game last winter). But he was an outstanding rebounder at both ends of the floor — third in the conference in offensive rebound rate in Big Ten games, 13th in defensive rebound rate — and a functional shot blocker as well. He also finished nearly 64% of 2s across a pair of seasons with the Golden Gophers.
The question with Payne might be whether IU lands Ballo. If they do, would Payne still consider the Hoosiers knowing he’d probably play from the bench in Bloomington? If so, that would hand Woodson enviable 4/5 depth. Whether Indiana recruited him to start or serve as a key reserve, he fits a lot of what the Hoosiers need from a player in his position.
Amari Williams
A senior with his COVID year remaining, Williams has been on Indiana’s radar since he hit the portal last month. Williams averaged 12.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game last season, and he’s been a remarkably efficient defensive presence for most of his career. He finished top-30 nationally in defensive rebound rate in each of the last three seasons, and he’s never posted a single-season block rate lower than 8.3%. Williams is expected in Bloomington next weekend. He certainly ticks a lot of the boxes Woodson needs at the five.
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.
