In the blink of an eye, the entire 2024-25 IU basketball roster was gone.
In two blinks, an entirely new team has emerged.
Indiana fans could benefit from “Hi, my name ____” name tags when the ball tips in November.
But while the faces will be new, this week assistant coach Drew Adams described the core attributes and intangibles new head coach Darian DeVries prioritized in a six-week speed-dating transfer portal extravaganza.
What does a prototypical Indiana basketball player look like during the DeVries era?
“I think we’ll have a lot of feel and skill and guys that know how to play basketball, know when to pass, know when to shoot, know when to dribble,” Adams said on the Hoosiers Connect podcast. “Unselfish basketball, shooting and skill. Guys that know when to move it, know when to (make) one more (pass). It allows different guys to explode on different nights, but everyone has to have an unselfish trait, knowing that every night it might not be them.
“Toughness is still one of the biggest things. I want to throw that in there. I think we have a lot of guys that will be tough.”
Unselfishness is a trait that does emerge upon examination of the stat lines of several new players. Despite many of them arriving as a leading scorer on their last team, they also have a history of sharing the basketball.
DePaul transfer guard Conor Enright’s assist rate last season was 37.8%, the 16th-highest in the nation. Troy transfer guard Tayton Conerway’s assist rate was 36.8%, good for No. 20.
Indiana’s offense under Mike Woodson often relied on the primary ball handler scoring off the bounce, or the low post player scoring on the block — in both scenarios, often while the other players watched.
For comparison purposes, IU only had one player last season with an assist rate over 20% — Trey Galloway at 29.8%.
It seems clear that under DeVries, the ball and the players are going to be on the move much more than what IU fans have grown accustomed to in recent years.
In addition to Enright and Conerway, IU has three more new players coming in with assist rates above 21%.
Power forward/center Reed Bailey had a 25.3% (No. 181 nationally) assist rate for Davidson in 2024-25. Jason Drake was at 23.5 (No. 258) with Drexel. And DeVries’ son Tucker had a 21.1% (No. 356) assist rate in his last full season at Drake.
That’s five players in the national top-356 in assist rate coming in vs. one on last year’s Indiana team. And DeVries has plenty of shooters to find for those assists. In the aggregate, IU’s incoming roster made 593 threes in their last full season of basketball while shooting 37.1% on those attempts. Eight of them shot 35% or better from long range. That’s a complete transformation as well.
While it’s difficult to rebuild an entire roster from the ground floor in a brief window, it did give DeVries the opportunity to shape the roster to fit the playing style he is seeking.
“The cool thing about starting from scratch is every piece can fit into Coach DeVries’ system,” Adams said. “You’re not trying to fit a square peg into a circle. We really got to evaluate the kids, the style of play, how they fit together, how they fit into his system. I think we’ve got a good group that will play well together.”
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