Two-big lineups have been an oft-debated topic for Indiana basketball fans in recent years.
The end of the Mike Woodson era in Bloomington saw double-big lineups with Malik Reneau and Kel’el Ware, followed by Reneau and Oumar Ballo. Those units saw mixed results, with neither team reaching the NCAA Tournament.
Indiana rarely used Sam Alexis and Reed Bailey at the same time in Darian DeVries’ first season at the helm. But based on comments he made in mid-May, the two-big looks could return for the Hoosiers in 2026-27 with Alabama transfer Aiden Sherrell and SMU transfer Samet Yiğitoğlu.
“We’d love to play them together, and that will be what we’ll start out the summer doing and seeing how that plays out,” DeVries said during an event in Carmel in May. “The more we can have both those guys out there together, the better.”
There’s reason to think Sherrell and Yiğitoğlu could work out better than previous duos did, though. Sherrell shot 33.8 percent from 3-point range last season with the Crimson Tide, a clip plenty respectable enough to force opponents to guard him beyond the arc.
Defensively, it could cause some problems if opponents go with smaller lineups against IU’s two bigs. But the Big Ten is full of physicality and size, and while Indiana may not want Sherrell matched up with a smaller forward for a whole game, he looks nimble enough to pick up that coverage every so often.
And DeVries sees Sherrell as a big enough offensive key to potentially make up for some of those matchup differences on the other end.
“It’s not like you’re giving up some of the spacing, cause he can certainly step out and shoot it and drive it,” DeVries said. “I think there’s gonna be a lot of things that he’s going to surprise people on what he can do on the perimeter, as well as taking advantage of just the size and switches and posting and those type of things.”
Overall, DeVries likes the balance his new roster displays.
Last season, Indiana quickly became a team that lived and died by 3-point shooting. Alexis regularly stepped up in the second half of the season, but it often didn’t matter if Lamar Wilkerson and IU’s outside shooters couldn’t get going.
For the coming year, DeVries has assembled an offense that looks less reliant — though still dangerous — on the 3-pointers, with multiple ways to get the job done. Sherrell and Yiğitoğlu give the Hoosiers much more size to compete with other Big Ten frontcourts than they had in Alexis and Bailey. A year ago some of the league’s best, including Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue, started two bigs as the game trends toward versatile size.
“I think what I like the most is just the balance,” DeVries said. “I think we got a lot of ways to score. We got some guys that can post, some guys that can go get in the paint, draw two, get a shot for themselves or create for others. I think we’ve got great depth, too.”
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