After a year with Indiana men’s basketball in the Big Ten, head coach Darian DeVries adapted his strategy for the transfer portal.
Though he didn’t take the Indiana job in March 2025 any later than some other recent hires who found immediate success, the timeline of getting things set up behind the scenes early on impacted roster-building efforts. IU, for one reason or another, wound up with a flawed team largely filled by mid-major transfers.
The Hoosiers, forced to build nearly an entirely new roster for a second straight year, have gone a different route this offseason. They emphasized size and physicality, particularly by adding 7-foot-2 center Samet Yiğitoğlu from SMU. Indiana’s tallest rotation player in 2025-26 was 6-foot-10 Reed Bailey, who often played more like a power forward than a center.
“We certainly prioritized needing to get some size, some physicality, and some depth there,” DeVries said during a press conference over Zoom Thursday morning. “Wanted to do as much as we could to be able to find guys that we’ll have an opportunity to retain and keep so we can start to build some stability.”
Additionally, all six players IU added from the portal are from power-conference programs.
Last season, the Hoosiers added 10 players in the portal, with only three coming from power-conference schools — Tucker DeVries (West Virginia), Conor Enright (DePaul), and Sam Alexis (Florida).
In addition to Yiğitoğlu, they filled out their transfer class with forward Aiden Sherrell (Alabama), and guards Darren Harris (Duke), Bryce Lindsay (Villanova), Markus Burton (Notre Dame), and Jaeden Mustaf (Georgia Tech).
This was a major emphasis for DeVries, executive director of basketball Ryan Carr, and Indiana’s staff in building the 2026-27 roster.
“Anytime there was an opportunity to find someone that had success on this level, it’s certainly something that is going to translate,” DeVries said. “When you’re, maybe you’re taking somebody from a lower level, you got to project it a little bit more. I thought even some of the guys at this level we felt really good about that maybe didn’t have as high of numbers, but we knew exactly what they were and what their abilities are. … We have a pretty good idea of what that’s going to look like as they get here.”
DeVries also noted the importance of the three freshmen IU is adding to the roster this season in Trevor Manhertz, Prince Alexander-Moody, and Vaughn Karvala. It remains to be seen how much those guys will be able to contribute right away, but it’s critical for the program’s long-term stability to bring in youth and retain those players as they develop.
“Excited about the way that’s played out, the way the portal season played. As of right now, we didn’t have a single senior that came through it,” DeVries said. “We have a lot of experienced guys, especially at the Power Four level that we feel great about.”
That comment is dependent on Markus Burton getting a year of eligibility back for his 2025-26 season at Notre Dame, when he played just 10 games.
And, of course, there’s a flip side. Adding players that could stay in Bloomington for multiple years is good for the long term big picture, but it means there’s less experience on the roster than a team full of seniors would have. But DeVries and the Hoosiers have attempted to thread that needle by adding a number of players with significant action under their belts as underclassmen.
IU moved much more quickly and efficiently than it did last year in the transfer portal, with a clear plan in mind and lessons to build on.
“There’s only so many guys in the portal. It’s not like you get to create guys. What’s in there is what’s in there. So just making sure that once the portal opened, we were as aggressive as possible in getting guys on campus as quickly as we could,” DeVries said. “Being organized of when we started … to when we had the opportunity to talk to them (players in the portal) and get them on campus, to do it as quickly as possible. And that’s what we did. We really tried to front load the visits and do as good a job as we could, as quickly as we could.”
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