The full IU basketball staff will spend Wednesday together on the road.
In addition to visiting 2024 top-20 guard Boogie Fland in New York, Mike Woodson and all three assistants will fly to central Florida to visit Derik Queen and Liam McNeeley at Montverde Academy on Wednesday, The Daily Hoosier learned earlier this week.
This is the third time Woodson has been to Montverde in the last three weeks, and the second time they’ve visited with their full staff during that span.
Along with Fland, Indiana is in a strong position with both McNeeley and Queen. Here is what The Daily Hoosier wrote about where IU stands with McNeeley and Queen on Monday:
LIAM MCNEELEY (SF, 5-star, No. 13)
It’s fair to call IU the consensus favorite to land McNeeley. At least we haven’t heard anyone suggest otherwise in a while.
This is a recruitment down to Indiana and Kansas, that much we know for sure.
Any time Bill Self is involved, you don’t let off the gas until you’ve got a signature on a national letter of intent, and that’s seemingly where Indiana is at right now.
McNeeley said over the weekend he plans to announce in the next couple weeks.
DERIK QUEEN (PF, 4-star, No. 15)
This is a competition between Indiana, Maryland and Houston — and Queen still has full weekend official visits set up to the latter two programs. Maryland has long been thought of as a legitimate contender, and Houston has entered that conversation. As long as those visits occur, anything can happen.
But here’s why IU has a real chance: Queen has a very tight and small inner-circle, and there are multiple people in that circle who like the idea of him playing at IU — for multiple reasons.
Queen was also teammates with Jalen Hood-Schifino and Malik Reneau at Montverde. Their positive experiences at Indiana have not gone unnoticed. And Trayce Jackson-Davis’ improvement under Mike Woodson matters too.
As we reported first in January, McNeeley and Queen are very good friends. It’s no coincidence they took both of their IU visits together, along with other visits. If McNeeley pops for Indiana, then that is just one more factor working in Indiana’s favor when it comes to Queen.
