Know Your Foe: Indiana
Wikipedia
By Tucker Harlin
We are now a week and a half from tip of the 2024-25 college basketball season!
#12 Tennessee begins the season against Gardner-Webb Monday, November 4, but the Vols will host #17 Indiana in a preseason exhibition in Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. Tip off is at 3 p.m. ET and the game will broadcast on SEC Network Plus.
Mike Woodson is in his fourth year as head coach in Bloomington, where he played from 1976-1980 under the legendary Bob Knight. The Hoosiers were in a state of disarray when Woodson assumed the role, but he’s worked hard to steer them on course.
Woodson’s first season saw the Hoosiers first trip to the NCAA tournament since 2016, but ended with a first round exit in a blowout loss to St. Mary’s. The Hoosiers went one round deeper in 2023 but finished with a loss to a Miami team that made the Final Four.
This season is about finding a route back to the NCAA tournament. Indiana was going to step back with the losses of Jalen Hood-Schifino and Trayce Jackson-Davis in 2023.
There are two notable losses from the 2023-24 squad as most of the other losses were depth pieces.
Quite literally the biggest and most important loss is center Kel’el Ware. The Oregon transfer averaged just shy of a double-double last season in the paint.
Guard Xavier Johnson is Indiana’s other key loss this season. Johnson dealt with some serious injury problems over the course of his career, so Hoosier fans never really got acquainted with his true capabilities.
Woodson had easy fix for Ware’s departure in Arizona transfer Oumar Ballo.
Tennessee fans will remember Ballo from the home and home the Vols and Wildcats played in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons. Ballo will be a challenge for other bigs in the Big 10 to contain all season.
Forwards Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako are the two most productive returning pieces for Indiana.
Both averaged double figures last season for the Hoosiers. Reneau averaged six rebounds per game while Mgbako shot just shy of 40% last year.
Guard Trey Galloway is the other important returnee for the Hoosiers this season. Galloway scored over 10 points per game last season and was a key distributor, averaging 4.6 assists per game.
Aside from Ballo, there are other newcomers of importance in 2024-25.
Guards Luke Goode, Kanaan Carlyle, and Myles Rice all come to Bloomington via the portal. Of the three, Rice was the most consistent scorer last season, netting no less than seven points in a game at Washington State.
Carlyle started strong for Stanford last year but hit a wall once conference play came around. Goode primarily came off the bench at Illinois.
The other transfer of note this year is center Langdon Hatton, who is on his third destination. Hatton averaged 10.5 points and just over seven rebounds per game at Bellarmine.
Since this is an exhibition, I’m sure we’ll see many different looks and rotations for the Hoosiers Sunday. Not everything both teams runs Sunday is indicative of the plan in the regular season but more for experimentation.
