With travel basketball now concluded for the class of 2026, developments are happening in their recruitments on a near daily basis.
Late July to late October has become list cut, visit and commitment season for rising seniors, and things are well underway.
Here are some of the updates from the last week.
Indiana could be in a smaller group than the seven finalists named last week by 2026 5-star Anthony Thompson.
National analyst Eric Bossi of 247Sports says IU is one of four teams generating buzz for Thompson, along with Michigan, Ohio State and Kentucky. Thompson is from Lebanon, Ohio, which is central to those four schools. Obviously the next thing to watch for with Thompson is his fall visit plans. With Indiana generating buzz, it seems like a good chance Thompson will make a return trip to Bloomington.
With the announcement Saturday of an upcoming IU visit by Davion Adkins and the Tuesday visit by international 5-star Sayon Keita, Indiana is up to four rising seniors with scheduled visits over the next three months:
- Sayon Keita: July 29
- Tay Kinney: Aug. 29-31
- Davion Adkins: Sept. 12-14
- Deron Rippey: Oct. 17-19
All four of those players are ranked inside the national top-40 in the 2026 class, or at least Keita would be if he were ranked and officially reclassifying to 2026, which is expected.
This visitor list is in addition to players like Prince-Alexander Moody (IU commit), Latrell Allmond, Luigi Suigo and Sammy Jackson (VCU commit), who have already been on campus.
There remains a group of players who seem to have interest in IU but haven’t announced their complete visit plans. So whether IU gets them on campus remains to be seen. They include Arafan Diane, Jordan Smith, Jr., Ethan Taylor, Cole Cloer, Miikka Muurinen.
In total, there are eight 2026 players with ongoing recruitments who have IU in their finalists right now:
(number of finalists)
- Latrell Allmond (9)
- Tay Kinney (12)
- Deron Rippey (12)
- Davion Adkins (6)
- Junior County (5)
- Anthony Thompson (7)
- Miikka Muurinen (7)
- Cole Cloer (8)
Italian 7-foot-3 center Luigi Suigo hasn’t announced finalists but has only visited Illinois, Purdue and IU to this point. Keita with six visits this week is in a similar category. International players typically don’t make as many trips to the U.S. for obvious reasons.
There’s also New Jersey-based wing Aiden Derkack, who is transferring to Spire Academy in Ohio for his senior year. In connection with the announcement over the weekend of the move, Derkack told multiple national types he’s continuing to hear from Indiana. The next thing to watch for is Derkack’s announcement of a list cut and visit plans. Other schools mentioned include Providence, Dayton, Notre Dame, Villanova, Maryland, USC, Oklahoma State and Butler. At 21.4 points per game, Derkack was the fourth-leading scorer on the Nike EYBL Circuit.
7-foot center Marcis Ponder had included IU in his final five, but he announced a commitment to Florida State on Tuesday.
Bryson Howard is probably a 2026 target you can take off your wish list, though nothing seems definitive at this point. The son of former NBA player Josh Howard has scheduled eight visits from late August to late October, and Indiana was not in the list. We’ve had Howard in our second tier of 2026 prospects, and this news will certainly keep him there.
Other players IU has offered who have started scheduling visits but haven’t included the Hoosiers and appear to be longshots include Toni Bryant, Caleb Gaskins, and Cameron Williams.
You can always get an updated and comprehensive look at Indiana’s 2026 through 2028 offers and prospects by going to our recruiting board. There you will find links to all of our content on each player, rankings, highlights and other key notes.
For all of our IU basketball recruiting coverage, GO HERE.
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