The five commits:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Markus Burton is a Mishawaka kid who has scored a ton of points in three seasons at Notre Dame, including leading the ACC in scoring as a sophomore in 2024\u201325. He\u2019s not without warts, dealing with injuries in back-to-back seasons and struggling at times with turnovers. But Indiana needed a premier portal point guard, and Burton certainly qualifies.<\/p>\n
Jaeden Mustaf was a top-60 recruit out of high school who has toiled in relative anonymity at Georgia Tech the last two seasons in spite of averaging north of 10 points per game for the Yellow Jackets. Consider this something of a buy low on an athletic guard with positional size.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Darren Harris is another former big-time recruit, once the No. 35 player in his class before two seasons in a bench role at Duke. He entered college billed as a potentially elite shooter, but shot just 31% across two seasons and didn\u2019t do enough outside of shooting the ball to earn more consistent playing time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Darren](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/01kp7avwjaaefv1tbqnj.jpg\" "\\"Darren")
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Former Duke guard Darren Harris didn\u2019t earn consistent playing time off the bench over the past two seasons and is transferring to Indiana. | Bob Donnan-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Samet Yi\u011fito\u011flu is a mass of humanity at 7′ 2″ and a two-way force around the rim. He was the No. 1 offensive rebounder in the ACC this past season and among the most coveted centers available. SMU was more than 10 points per 100 possessions better defensively when Yi\u011fito\u011flu was on the floor this season, his length around the basket a major deterrent for opposing drivers. Yi\u011fito\u011flu is the exact type of five-man Indiana lacked this season, a big reason it collapsed so spectacularly down the stretch<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aiden Sherrell made it a perfect five for five for Indiana\u2019s early wave of visitors, another elite portal big man picking the Hoosiers after a strong season at Alabama. With the Crimson Tide, he was a full-time center; at Indiana, he\u2019ll likely split time between the four and the five in bigger lineups next to Yi\u011fito\u011flu. Offensively, that pairing could be dynamic given Sherrell\u2019s ability to stretch the floor. Defensively, Sherrell will be tested from a mobility standpoint guarding smaller players, but college basketball as a whole is slanting toward playing bigger. Adding two top-tier centers from the portal gives Indiana a chance to do just that.\u00a0<\/p>\n Conservatively, Burton, Yi\u011fito\u011flu and Sherrell are three of the top 50 players who\u2019ll change teams this offseason. The roster isn\u2019t complete (in part due to the Hoosiers having just one total returner from last season\u2019s roster), but that trio in particular gives Indiana real building blocks and reasons for significant optimism heading into DeVries\u2019s second season on the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s encouraging that DeVries (guided by new executive director of basketball Ryan Carr, formerly of the Indiana Pacers\u2019 front office) has made the necessary adjustments in roster-building after a fairly disastrous first go-round in the portal last spring. Indiana was heavily undersized, with just two contributors over 6′ 8″ in senior transfers Reed Bailey and Sam Alexis. The narrative early was that Indiana could overcome that lack of size with skill and shooting, and few teams in college basketball fired up triples at as high a rate as Indiana did. That thinking proved fatally flawed and made beefing up the frontcourt priority No. 1 in the portal. The Yi\u011fito\u011flu\/Sherrell double won\u2019t be cheap, but on paper it\u2019s a worthy investment for two can\u2019t-miss bigs to stabilize things at the rim.\u00a0<\/p>\n Samet Yi\u011fito\u011flu will help the Hoosiers stabilize things around the rim. | Eakin Howard-Imagn Images<\/p>\n Big fish in tow, now it\u2019s on DeVries and the Indiana staff to build quality depth. This was another of Indiana\u2019s major failings in Year 1. By late in the season, DeVries had little faith in anyone outside his top six or seven key pieces, failing to hit on some of the lower-budget portal and international additions that filled out his first roster. A full high school class with three top-80 recruits should help there and hopefully be future building blocks, but more pieces DeVries can trust to put in games late is a must.\u00a0<\/p>\n The remaining big hole, if there is one, is one more dynamic scorer in the backcourt, assuming that Mustaf and Harris are more useful plug-and-play pieces than stars. Pair Burton with another quality bucket-getter, and the Indiana offense suddenly looks that much more dangerous.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Indiana fans have proclaimed themselves offseason champions in the past (most recently with the Oumar Ballo\u2013led class that ultimately precipitated Mike Woodson\u2019s demise as head coach in Bloomington), so it\u2019s easy to question whether these will be the same ol\u2019 Hoosiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n But all told, this five-man flurry was exactly what the doctor ordered for an Indiana program in desperate need of a big spring. Because of the lack of any meaningful holdovers (minus local product Trent Sisley, a Woodson signee who earned some rotation minutes as a freshman) from last year\u2019s on-the-fly roster flip, Indiana was staring down as important an offseason as any major program in terms of landing impactful pieces both for now and the future. Landing this talented quintet should give DeVries a fighting chance to get the Hoosiers program rolling again, and could be an early moment that changed the tenor in Bloomington after a bumpy first season.\u00a0<\/p>\n More College Basketball From Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n Listen to SI\u2019s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>. Watch the show on SI\u2019s College YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Samet](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/01kp7b1xdzg7n0c7rj45.jpg\" "\\"Samet")
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