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    IU men’s basketball notebook: Peru trip, non-conference scheduling

    Seth TowBy IU Basketball 9 Comments

    BORDEN, Ind. — Indiana men’s basketball took a summer trip to Puerto Rico in August 2025, leading into the start of the semester weeks later.

    This year, IU is going to Peru for a similar trip with team bonding, additional practices, and preseason games. But there are some differences between the trips, which head coach Darian DeVries is hoping will be beneficial for his team.

    “Excited about the trip. The extra time in the gym is very useful,” DeVries said at Huber’s Orchard and Winery Wednesday. “I like … it’s a little bit sooner in the summer, July 18th to the 28th. So the guys will still get a break when they get back. It’s not just right into school, so there’s a little bit of a refreshing time for them. We get more games too. So I think that’s going to be great.”

    He added that Indiana’s international players — center Clemens Sokolov from Germany and center Samet Yigitoglu from Turkey — won’t be able to participate in the games, although they’ll still be on the trip.

    “It’s like they have an injury or something, they’re not able to perform,” DeVries said. “Other guys just get more opportunities, and we’ll make the most of that.”

    Scheduling

    Indiana has recently formalized its non-conference game against Syracuse, along with moving the date of the Kentucky game into November.

    A few other non-conference games have trickled out — Eastern Illinois, Bellarmine, and Bowling Green.

    DeVries indicated there may be more marquee games coming for the Hoosiers in non-conference play.

    “I’m not sure what’s all been officially released yet, but I know there’s a game or two we’re still working on. I think the non-conference schedule will have some high-quality opponents in there that will be great for us,” DeVries said. “And again, when you’ve got a 20- game Big Ten schedule, plenty of quality opponents in that. But I do think we’ve got some good early tests that will be great for us to kind of see where we’re at and challenge us early.”

    Building non-conference schedules has become a little more challenging in recent years with the various evolutions of college athletics.
    “Buy” games are relatively unchanged, but there are layers to scheduling power-conference opponents that didn’t exist a decade ago. The NET system is part of the calculation, with neutral-site games being mutually beneficial and potentially less risky than losing a home game.
    But really, NIL has thrown multi-team events into disarray and also made it harder to schedule home-and-homes instead of neutral site contests. And DeVries is aware of all that as he’s gone about building IU’s schedule for 2026-27.
    “The neutral sites are kind of taking the place of a lot of the MTEs just because there are opportunities for NIL and things. So you’re seeing a lot of schools have to go to that and want to go to that to help support kind of the NIL piece of it and the component of it. So there are a lot more factors that go into just scheduling a game anymore,” DeVries said. “And, we’re involved with some things possibly moving forward, too, that we want to remain flexible on to make sure that we’re in the best position there that we can as well. So, yeah, it’s certainly different scheduling non-conference than it used to be.”

    For complete coverage of IU men’s basketball, GO HERE.

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