In case you hadn’t heard, the college basketball recruiting calendar is back into full swing with coaches travelling across the country to visit prospects at their schools, at camps and apparently at their houses just after midnight.
Indiana head coach Darian DeVries isn’t doing that, instead opting to have said prospect visit Bloomington instead.
But now that recruiting is intensifying, it’s worth considering what DeVries should prioritize for his first class as the Hoosiers’ head coach. The program already has one prospect, combo guard Prince-Alexander Moody, committed for the 2026 group, but there’s more than enough room to bring in a substantial class.
I hesitate to treat Indiana’s starting lineup from its Puerto Rico trip as gospel, which you shouldn’t, but that’s all we have to go on right now and those five guys will have prominent roles on this season’s team whether or not they’re starting. The thing about those guys? They’re all gone after this season. Indiana will almost certainly have an entirely new starting lineup in year two under DeVries as the staff leaned on experience in the transfer portal.
Assuming there’s no medical redshirts or weird NCAA eligibility extensions because of *gestures at everything,* Indiana is looking at eight open scholarships for the 2026-27 roster, seven when you count in Moody. That number decreases further, down to five, when you consider Indiana is unlikely to use those last two spots, as it didn’t this year, to avoid diluting the revenue sharing pool.
That number could fluctuate based on upcoming commitments from the class of 2026 or transfer portal attrition, which I don’t find fair to speculate over and isn’t reliably possible to predict without inside information. So for now, we’re going with five.
It’s been said that DeVries is going to lean on high school recruiting rather than turning Indiana into a “portal program,” which is good because roster continuity is pretty predictive of team success in college basketball. It also means larger high school recruiting classes than the program has put together in years.
There’s always the option of leaning on the portal if a prospect doesn’t pan out, but that should be treated as an auxiliary roster building tool rather than the main thing. A star developed in a system with continuity will probably perform at least a bit better than a star thrown into a new system with new teammates, especially in high-pressure situations like NCAA Tournament play.
But, to get to the point here, what should DeVries prioritize? Fair warning a lot of this is going to seem obvious. That’s because it is.
Well, yes, this is a pretty obvious one.
I know the whole thing with Indiana is that the program has assembled a ton of talent over the years and has little to show for it, but at the end of the day you need those types of players to win at the level that Indiana should. Indiana also happens to be in the rather fortuitous situation of being able to attract that type of talent.
DeVries’ staff reflects this, it’s loaded with recruiters with connections all across the sport from the DMV to the various youth circuits and around the state of Indiana. That’s why Indiana keeps appearing on top-8s, top-5s and whatever other number for all those highly-rated prospects you see on social media, it’s the program leveraging those pre-existing connections.
I’m truly not sure how many future starters are on Indiana’s bench right now. Trent Sisley figures to take on that sort of role eventually, Nick Dorn has some intrigue to him and it’ll be interesting to watch Aleksa Ristic develop, but the rest are hard to project.
The kind of talent Indiana has been pursuing is the type that’d start immediately, guys who are gonna be on NBA Draft boards year one or two. You shouldn’t solely rely on that talent to carry you through a season but it certainly helps to have a guy who can do the kinds of things most of your opponents just can’t.
Ideally this talent is mixed into a cohesive group of developed players that’s already spent years together but that’s the sort of thing that comes with time.
Just taking a peek at the roster and the offers DeVries and co have extended up to this point, it’s clear that a few positions will take priority in 2026.
Center: Indiana needs a center in the class of 2026. I don’t like speaking in absolutes, but it feels like the program can’t really afford to enter next offseason without someone being committed, at the very least. Reed Bailey and Sam Alexis are gone after this season. Josh Harris feels like more of a depth option than a potential starter in the Big Ten. Again, there’s the portal to fall back on, but Indiana would probably prefer to land and develop a high-schooler.Small Forward: This past portal season made a few things clear, one of them being that DeVries loves wings, and not just the kind you’ll get at Buffalouies. The 2025-26 roster features a lot of players who have the versatility to play small forward including Lamar Wilkerson (who did so in Puerto Rico), Tucker DeVries, Jasai Miles, Nick Dorn and Trent Sisley. Those are the kinds of guys who allow for some lineup flexibility given their ability to play the three by sliding over from the two or the four or even vice versa. Indiana has offered A Lot of guys like that in the 2026 class, with most having good positional size at that. It’s a modern approach to the game that can serve the program well if (a big if) it can turn into results on the court.Shooting guard: Yeah, this is another one the staff seems to really be prioritizing. A lot of the guys Indiana has offered have that same solid size at guard too. With the program having been starved for reliable shooters in the backcourt (and everywhere else but mostly there) for the past decade and DeVries looking to prioritize 3s, you can’t blame them for emphasizing this on the trail. Indiana prioritized the ability to shoot the ball (which yes seems like a given for the position but, uh, look at recent years) at shooting guard in the transfer portal with Wilkerson, so it’s not surprising that philosophy has carried on into high school. Look for defense to be an emphasis at this spot as well, as much as it can be.
You might be surprised to not see “Point Guard” here given that Tayton Conerway and Conor Enright are set to depart after this season and it’s arguably the most important position on the floor. Either the staff knows something we don’t about someone on the roster or is already planning on dipping into the portal for that position. Indiana’s offers at point guard are light and, outside of a prospect who has already committed to Notre Dame (Micah Shrewsberry’s gotta start winning soon though), those offers have been extended to the best two options possible. Which, why not at least try? Indiana has offered a few more prospects in the class of 2027 and Jason Gardner Jr is right up the road. I can’t say for certain but the signs point to the staff having a plan.
Our final obvious point lands on depth. Indiana adopted something of a go-big-or-go-home approach to recruiting under Mike Woodson and went home almost every time. As a result, the program’s depth suffered.
The Hoosiers recruited a handful of guys who could become solid contributors if they were given time to develop, but most didn’t do so, suffered injuries or entered the portal when it became apparent that they (and the staff itself) didn’t have a solid future in Bloomington. Some of those pieces were holdovers from Archie Miller’s recruiting efforts.
This became a massive problem in Woodson’s final two seasons. Indiana had to turn to other portal options to play behind the heavy-hitters it landed at center and both times signed guys from the state who’d played at lower levels, Payton Sparks and Langdon Hatton. Both were out of their depth for different reasons and Indiana had to play Oumar Ballo more than it probably should’ve as a result.
Indiana can’t rely on the portal for depth. The international pipeline is an option, one DeVries has already used, but it’s important for Indiana to go out and find their Luke Goode (at Illinois) and Mason Gillis guys to develop, play off the bench, and become capable of starting in a pinch.
Moody probably won’t start as a freshman, so he’s already an example of the kind of guy that can look to contribute from the bench while carving out a larger role in the program with development over time. Indiana is pursuing a handful of other such guys. It must continue doing so.