EAST LANSING, Mich. – The only thing you’re going to recognize about Indiana basketball on Tuesday night when the Hoosiers visit Michigan State is the candy stripe warm-up pants. Everything else is different.
With Mike Woodson having been fired last year, the transfer portal fully purged the Indiana roster of last year’s players and replaced them with a brand new lineup from top to bottom under first-year coach Darian DeVries.
Even astute followers of college basketball would have a hard time recognizing one name on the Indiana roster when the season began. When is the last time an ardent Big Ten basketball fan could say that about Indiana basketball? How about never?
Of Indiana’s eight-man playing group, none were on the team last year. Six are senior transfers. A seventh is a junior. The eighth is a true freshman.
The Hoosiers are simultaneously old and new. DeVries purchased a roster that is long on senior experience, mostly with accolades from the mid-major level.
DeVries and the Indiana basketball coffers didn’t spend as much as last year’s high-priced Woodson roster which went 19-13 overall and 10-10 in the Big Ten. But DeVries’ team seems on track to out-produce Woodson’s last squad.
Woodson’s Hoosiers managed to upset No. 11 Michigan State, 71-67, last Feb. 11. The eight Hoosiers who played that night in Breslin Center – Mackenzi Mgbako, Luke Goode, Oumar Ballo, Anthony Leal, Trey Galloway, Malik Reneau, Bryson Tucker and Myles Rice – are long gone.
The new Indiana team is 12-4, and 3-2 in the Big Ten. The Hoosiers looked like they were headed for 4-1 in the Big Ten and becoming the talk of the conference on Saturday. Indiana led No. 10-ranked Nebraska by 16 points with 17 minutes to go, before surrendering an 83-77 decision to the unbeaten Huskers in Bloomington, Ind.
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