Name: Indiana University Bloomington
Location: Bloomington, Indiana, obviously
Founded: 1820
Indiana University, noted theological school: Indiana was founded as the State Seminary and from the days the doors opened through 1885, all of the university presidents were in fact members of the clergy. Of course, they stopped that, making Indiana a school run by quitters.
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The Indiana-Purdue rivalry sounds fun: Lemme quote this passage from IU’s Wikipedia page, talking about the early 20th century:
The curriculum emphasized the classics, as befitted a gentleman, and stood in contrast to the service-oriented curriculum at Purdue, which presented itself as of direct benefit to farmers, industrialists, and businessmen.
No word on whether you could buy a pipe and a monocle on campus or if you had to bring your own from home.
Shake a statue’s hand: Herman Wells was the 11th president of Indiana University and the first chancellor in school history. He served as president from 1938 through 1962 and then stood as chancellor, albeit as an honorary title, from 1962 through his death in 2000. There is a statue of him on campus, and tradition states that good luck is granted by shaking his outstretched hand.
Enrollment: 48,626, which is apparently a record. That includes 38,463 undergraduates, which means IU’s graduate level student body of 10,163 is bigger than Marquette’s undergraduate enrollment.
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Nickname: Hoosiers
Why “Hoosiers?” Because residents of the state of Indiana are nicknamed Hoosiers, obviously.
That was not helpful. You’re right, it wasn’t.
We’re waiting for an explanation. UGH, you’re the worst. According to the Indiana Historical Bureau, we don’t know. On January 1, 1833, the Indianapolis Journal published a poem entitled “The Hoosier’s Nest,” and offered no explanation of the name, leading historians to understand that it was a commonly used word already at that time. There are instances of it popping up before that, but again, nothing to indicate an explanation of what it meant. So yeah, there’s no real explanation other than that’s what citizens of Indiana are called and that’s all there is to say about that.
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Notable Alumni: E. Jean Carroll, journalist, author, and abuse/defamation lawsuit winner; musician Hoagy Carmichael; Mark Cuban, part owner of the Dallas Mavericks; Jamie Hyneman, host of MythBusters; Silas Warner, the creator of the video game Wolfenstein; Rod Paige, former United States Secretary of Education; Ryan Murphy, creator of television shows such as Nip/Tuck, Glee, and American Horror Story; Dan Quayle, former Vice President of the United States; Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games series; journalist and TV news anchor Jane Pauley, professional baseball player Kyle Schwarber; David Anspaugh, the director of both Hoosiers and Rudy, which really leans into that “Notre Dame Football/Indiana men’s basketball” fandom joke; Paul O’Neill, former United States Secretary of the Treasury; author and television host Tavis Smiley; actor Jonathan Banks, most famous for his role as Mike Ehrmantraut on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul; Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries; sports broadcaster Joe Buck; James Watson, molecular biologist and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA; sports statistician Jeff Sagarin; actress Sarah Clarke, most famous for her role as Nina Meyers on 24; Dick Enberg, sports broadcaster and noted friend of Al McGuire; Academy Award winning actor Kevin Kline; Pulitzer Prize winners Don Mellett, Gene Miller, Tom French, Michel du Cille, Ernie Pyle, and Nancy Weaver Teichert; actor Lee Majors, most famous for his role as Steve Austin on The Six Million Dollar Man; singer Jim Cornelison; Robert Gates, former United States Secretary of Defense; Scott A. Jones, inventor most known for inventing voice mail; John T. Thompson, inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, aka “the Tommy gun;” and finally, cult leader Jim Jones.
All-Time Series: Indiana leads the all-time series 8-2. The two teams have not met since November 2018, where Indiana defeated #24 Marquette, 96-73, at Assembly Hall.
The two most famous meetings between the two teams came in 1973 and 1976. In 1973, the two teams met in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament with Marquette ranked #5 in the country and Indiana ranked #6. The Hoosiers got the 75-69 victory.
Three years later, the two sides met up in the NCAA tournament again, except one round later and with a trip to the Final Four on the line. If you ever think that the NCAA selection committee is a bunch of goofs these days, please remember that they set up the 1976 tournament to pit #1 ranked and undefeated Indiana up against #2 ranked and 23-1 Marquette against each other IN THE ELITE EIGHT. Say whatever you want to say about the AP Poll not meaning anything, but strict regional bracketing is a DUMB DUMB DUMB way to set up a tournament. As you probably figured out if you know your history, Indiana got the win, 65-56, and went on to complete the last undefeated season in college basketball history.
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Is there a reason to hate Indiana other than the all-time series? Well, they did hire Tom Crean away from Marquette following the 2007-08 season as the Hoosiers needed someone to pick up the pieces after they fired Kelvin Sampson for making too many phone calls. (No, really, that’s why. This is before texting was really a thing, so the NCAA wanted to make sure you weren’t bothering recruits too much.) If you want to dislike Indiana for what amounts to a compliment of “we believe we are a very good program, while you are a good program with a good coach and we shall hire your coach now,” well, that’s fine.
I don’t really blame Crean for taking the IU job, although I do have questions about him bailing on a potential Final Four team (they were ranked #8 in the country when Dominic James broke his foot, remember) to start rebuilding a program from the ground up.
I dislike Indiana for how they treated Tom Crean. Indiana (presumably?) believes themselves to be a blue blood program here in 2025, and hey, under Bob Knight from 1972 through 1993, you could definitely make the argument that they were. From 1993 to 2016, Indiana won three Big Ten Titles. Tom Crean won two of them. Indiana fired Tom Crean exactly one calendar year after winning his second one.
That’s a bunch of crap.
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Last Season: 19-13, 10-10 in the Big Ten
Final 2024-25 KenPom.com Ranking: #45 out of 364
Final 2024-25 BartTorvik.com Ranking: #50 out of 364
Preseason Poll: The Big Ten doesn’t do a team poll. However, the Columbus Dispatch and Indianapolis Star think that’s trash, so they put together a media poll. Indiana was picked 10th in the 18 team Big Ten. The league did put together a preseason all-conference team, but no one from Indiana was honored.
This Season: 1-0 after a 98-51 win over Alabama A&M in their opener.
Current KenPom.com Ranking: #34 out of 365, up from their starting point of #40.
Current BartTorvik.com Ranking: #33 out of 365, up from #40 when their opener tipped off.
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Returning Stats Leaders: No one. Okay, technically Jordan Rayford, who played one minute against Sam Houston State on December 3, 2024. He recorded no other stats, and he’s literally the only guy who got on the court for the Hoosiers that is still on the roster now.
Current Stats Leaders
Points: Reed Bailey, 21
Rebounds: Tucker DeVries, 11
Assists: Tayton Conerway, 5
Yes, those are totals, they played one game.
Head Coach: Darian DeVries, in his first season with the Hoosiers. He posted a record of 150-55 in six seasons with Drake, taking the Bulldogs to the NCAA tournament in three of the five campaigns where the tournament was held. He also went 19-13 last year at West Virginia for a full career record of 170-68. Yes, Tucker is his son.
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Bigs? There’s two guys to watch here. Reed Bailey is listed at 6’10” and 230 pounds. He wrapped up the opener with a team high 21 points on 7-for-9 shooting and he added five rebounds and two assists in 23 minutes. He spent the last three seasons at Davidson, culminating in 18.8 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.8 assists a year ago. He has just 130 career three-point attempts, but did connect on 41% of his 41 tries as a junior.
Sam Alexis came off the bench against Alabama A&M and chipped in 17 points thanks to a perfect 5-for-5 on two point attempts. The 6’9”, 240 pounder from Apopka, Florida, also had eight rebounds, three assists, and two blocks in 20 minutes of action. He won a national championship with Florida last season after transferring over from Chattanooga, but an ankle injury kept him out of action from mid-February forward. He was a role player for the Gators with 4.7 points and 3.5 rebounds in less than 12 minutes a game there, but put up 10.8 points and 9.1 rebounds as a sophomore with the Mocs.
I’m presuming that we won’t see freshman Andrej Acimovic at all on Sunday. The 6’10”, 240 pound Bosnian didn’t play against Alabama A&M, and if you’re not going to get minutes in Game #1 after it turns into a laugher with your team up 29-7 in the first 10 minutes, I doubt you’re playing in Game #2 against a more comparable team to your own.
Shooters? Two guys combined for eight of Indiana’s 10 made three-pointers on Wednesday night. Tucker DeVries made half of his eight attempts, while Lamar Wilkerson was 4-for-10. No one else shot more than two long range attempts, so it’s unclear exactly how much everyone else’s shooting will play into the Hoosiers’ overall strategy.
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DeVries is a career 37% shooter who was hitting at a 47% clip before he was sidelined with shoulder surgery after eight games with his father at West Virginia last season. He hit just under 36% in 6.7 attempts per game in 104 games with his dad at Drake before that. Wilkerson was at Sam Houston State for the past three seasons, and he was a 40% shooter on an average of 5.3 attempts per game in 95 contests with the Bearkats. He was great last year, leading Conference USA at a 44.5% clip on 7.7 attempts per game.
No one else that attempted a three against Alabama A&M has much of a history in Division 1 as a notable shooting threat. Maybe they turn into one as a result of defenses gravitating towards DeVries or Wilkerson combined with the inside threat of Bailey or Alexis? For now, though: No other notable names to know ahead of time.
What To Watch For: With Indiana ripping off a 29-4 run after Alabama A&M scored first on Wednesday night, I don’t know if there’s any big takeaways from anything in that game, even as a trend for how Darian DeVries has coached in the past. They’re probably not going to shoot 76% on twos again this season, y’know?
All we can do is look at the trend lines for what DeVries did in his seasons at Drake and one campaign at West Virginia. One thing that jumps off the KenPom.com page? DeVries’ teams have historically been lousy at offensive rebounding. They’ve ranked #297 or worse in five of his seven seasons as a head coach, including last year at WVU, which very much indicates that’s a decision on purpose. They got to 27% of their misses against the Bulldogs, which is currently a middle of the country number but not that far off from the 25.9% that the Mountaineers posted last year at #300 nationally.
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DeVries’ teams have also been lousy at getting to the free throw line. That’s probably connected to getting at least 31% of their shots from behind the three-point line in every single one of his seasons as a head coach, peaking at 46% last year. “Don’t foul a three-point shooter” is pretty standard coaching, so if you’re going to shoot a lot of them out there, you’re not going to draw fouls all that much. Combine each of the last two things, and that should create a situation where Marquette should not be handing Indiana a lot of free or extra chances at points. Key word: Should.
We’ve seen top 80 defenses from DeVries in each of the past three seasons, including #40 in 2022-23 and #15 last season in the Big 12. They have mostly accomplished that through 1) making you miss shots and 2) not giving you a second chance. His last two Drake teams were #4 and #2 in the country in defensive rebounding rate, and on Wednesday night, Alabama A&M had just three offensive rebounds in the entire game. One guy grabbed two, and the third was a ball that went out of bounds off of the Hoosiers. Last year at West Virginia was by far the worse defensive rebounding that DeVries has coached, but we might be able to chalk some of that up to Tucker DeVries missing most of the season. He had 10 defensive rebounds in this year’s opener, and in 2023-24, the 6’7” DeVries was one of the 200 best defensive rebounders in the country in terms of rate. Ah, but they were elite at defense without rebounding last year? Yep, forced a ton of turnovers to make up for it. That has usually not been part of Darian DeVries’ profile, and they only got a turnover on 16% of possessions against Alabama A&M.
One final note: Conor Enright is here. Enright played for DeVries at Drake, and when his coach left, he left…. for DePaul. You might remember Conor Enright from his 11 assists at Wintrust Arena last season against Marquette as the Golden Eagles won, 85-83, in overtime….. but you might also remember him from his SEVEN TURNOVERS in that game.
From my recap, because two of his turnovers are particularly notable:
With 45 seconds left in regulation, Jones hit the purest looking shot you’ll ever see in your life to slash a four point DePaul lead to just one point. Then, on the other end, Stevie Mitchell merely existing caused Conor Enright to just crossover dribble the ball over the midcourt line with 25 seconds left.
Yeah, THAT Conor Enright. Then, in OT:
Stevie Mitchell hauled in a Chase Ross airball, MU by six, less than three minutes left. Enright let his foot slide out of bounds on a rebound, Mitchell bulled his way to the rim, put back his own miss, Marquette by eight, less than 90 seconds left.
Look, all I’m saying is that if you see Nigel James tying on a lobster bib when Enright checks into the game, you now understand why.
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