Author: Mike Schumann

Maintaining success has never been more difficult in college basketball.  The combination of the transfer portal and the NBA Draft makes each offseason both eventful and potentially transformative for most programs. Now that the smoke has mostly cleared following the 2021-22 season, we’ll go team-by-team in the Big Ten to assess which programs are set up for success, and who might take a step back. ———— Next up is Michigan State.  The Spartans are coming off a 23-13 season overall including an 11-9 finish in the Big Ten.  They have some key pieces back, but did MSU bring in anyone…

Class of 2024 wing Kanon Catchings got a chance to briefly meet IU head coach Mike Woodson a couple weeks ago at the program’s team camp in Bloomington. He’s coming back this week for an unofficial visit. “He’s cool,” Catchings said of his initial brief impression of Woodson when we caught up with him briefly on Saturday following the IBCA top-100 camp. “I’ll meet him more this week.  I’m excited to get back out there on Wednesday.” Catchings was performing on Saturday at his home school — Brownsburg H.S. in the northwest Indianapolis suburbs.  As a sophomore at Brownsburg, he…

With a sudden end of June decision timeline that arose soon after a Maryland visit, class of 2023 wing Jamie Kaiser looked like a pretty heavy lean to end up with the Terrapins. And that may very well be where he lands. But the end of June timing appears to be no longer, and IU head coach Mike Woodson may have played a role. Woodson made Kaiser a priority on Friday night during the first day of a live recruiting period that allows college coaches to watch players in person.  The Indiana head coach flew out to the Washington D.C.…

If Indiana bounces back in 2022, they will have earned it. In what could be the last year of division play in the Big Ten, the Hoosiers have the most difficult schedule in the conference according to ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). ESPN describes the FPI as “a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. The FPI model ranks IU No. 66 in the country overall and predicts 4.3 wins in…

Watch below spring highlights of 2024 center Yves Missi. A product of the PSA Cardinals on the Nike EYBL circuit, Missi is an elite shot blocker who plays with a high level motor and finishes effectively at the rim. Indiana offered Missi a scholarship in April. A 4-star prospect, Missi is currently ranked No. 31 overall in the 2024 class, and the No. 6 center.  He is the leader on the EYBL 16u level with 3.5 blocks per game, and third with 9.8 rebounds. The 6-foot-11 Missi is No. 15 for PSA in the video. See also:  Observations on 2024…

June 15 always brings a wave of activity to the phones of rising juniors.  The date marks the first time college coaches can directly contact incoming high school junior prospects, and it typically results in the emergence of few new names on the radar of the IU basketball staff. Of course the players Indiana had already offered heard from the staff this week, including Derik Queen, Liam McNeeley, William Jobe, Asa Newell, Raleigh Burgess, Boogie Fland, Yves Missi and others. A couple new offers also came out of the fray — Aiden Sherrell and Jaeden Mustaf both had conversations with…

Golden State hit Boston with a 35-8 run that stretched into the second quarter on the way to building as much as a 22-point lead. They never looked back, clinching the NBA title 103-90 in Boston. Perhaps it was elite video production that played a role in the gameplan, allowing the Warriors to pounce on the Celtics in Game Six in Boston? When Golden State rushed the floor after the final buzzer, former IU star Will Sheehey could be seen in the corner of the screen on the ABC broadcast on Thursday evening. The Warriors hired Sheehey as an assistant…

Coming into the 2021-22 season Race Thompson had only attempted 28 3-pointers over the course of his three seasons on the court with IU. And while the volume wasn’t enough to be meaningful, the results weren’t promising. Thompson made just six of those 28 attempts, and early on in year four, things got worse before they got better. The 6-foot-8 Minnesota product made just 4-of-30 (13.3 percent) from long range over the first 19 games of the season, and it looked like the ‘can Race Thompson shoot’ question had been answered. But then something clicked in late January.  Thompson went…

Watch below as Indiana redshirt senior Race Thompson met with the media on Thursday afternoon via Zoom. The Minnesota native was third on the team last season averaging 11.1 points, and second in rebounding (7.5) and field goal percentage (53.6%).  He shot 44 percent from long distance in the last 16 games (11-of-25). He arrived at Indiana for the 2017-18 season and took a pre-planned redshirt season.  Then Thompson played in just nine games in 2018-19 after suffering a serious concussion.  But he has been a main cog in the program since. For his career Thompson has played in 100…

The Big Ten Conference has announced Indiana’s league opponents for the 2022-23 season. Consistent with recent years, teams will play a total of 20 Big Ten games.  Schools will play seven programs in a home-and-away series, and they will meet six of the conference’s other teams just one time. Here are Indiana’s home only, away only, and their home and away conference opponents for 2022-23: https://twitter.com/IndianaMBB/status/1537495683602780163?s=20&t=SfGjlN2SycM6nmRfBeIE5Q HOME ONLY:  Nebraska, Ohio State, Wisconsin AWAY ONLY:  Maryland, Minnesota, Penn State HOME AND AWAY:  Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers League play will begin in December with two games, followed by…