Mike Woodson leaned on NBA experience in evaluating, recruiting IU basketball transfer portal targets

Indiana men’s basketball had a busy offseason in the transfer portal.

The Hoosiers, because of a big group of departures to graduation and outbound transfers, needed to rebuild around half of their roster. And they thrived in doing so, bringing in the No. 2 transfer portal class in the country, per 247Sports. That group includes the top player in the transfer portal this year in big man Oumar Ballo, outside shooting in Kanaan Carlyle and Luke Goode, playmaking in Myles Rice, and frontcourt depth in Langdon Hatton. IU still has one scholarship open, but it’s unclear if and how it could be utilized.

Indiana has had success in the transfer portal in previous years under Woodson. Kel’el Ware transferred in last season and is now a potential lottery pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. But IU left some holes unplugged after swinging and missing on some key players it was linked with. This season’s roster rebuild looks more robust.

“We had no choice. We had guys that left. We had guys that graduated. That’s the new norm, now, guys,” head coach Mike Woodson said at IU’s annual event at Huber Winery and Vineyards. “This is not like the Bob Knight days where you could build your team over three, four years and trust the process. Our process now is changing every year because you don’t know who’s coming and who’s going. And it was a busy summer because we had to fill a lot of holes based on who left and the guys that graduated.”

Woodson went on to shed some light on the process he and his staff go through in evaluating players in the transfer portal.

He’s shown his prowess in short-term recruitments in the past, capitalizing on late-cycle decommitments to bring Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako to Bloomington in consecutive offseasons. It ties back to what Woodson is more familiar with: NBA free agency.

He views the transfer portal similarly.

“We sat down at the end (of the season)… I kind of treated it like I was when I was back in the NBA. I make our guys rank the top 10 players at their position. Then I make the decision on who I want to go get. And if it’s the best player, then we’ve got to give it a shot. Because all they can do is tell us no.”

Ballo is the top player Woodson alluded to. He said Indiana got involved as quickly as possible when he and his staff heard rumblings that the former Arizona center might enter the portal, and continued that recruitment when he officially entered the portal.

That sort of recruiting is different than how IU — and everyone else in college basketball — has to go about traditional high school recruitments. The Hoosiers remain involved with top in-state class of 2025 players Trent Sisley, Malachi Moreno, and Braylon Mullins, among other top prospects in that class. But, he acknowledged, there’s only so much he can do as these high school kids weigh their options.

“Got to keep recruiting them. I’m not going to stop recruiting them. I think they’re talented enough to help us here in the future. So we’re still on their doorsteps, we’re still going to AAU games and I’m on the phone constantly communicating, because we’d like to see them stay here in the state. But again, it’s up to these guys. They’ve been offered the scholarship. I don’t know what more we can do. We could keep hammering home and say, ‘We want you in the uniform,’ ‘Come see us,’ ‘Can we come see you?’ and they still tell us no,” Woodson said. “Those guys have that opportunity (to wear an IU uniform) because I have offered them scholarships, and I do want them here. I’ve just got to keep recruiting them. I can’t quit.”

Woodson and his staff didn’t change anything about the way they recruited the transfer portal this year from what they’ve done in previous offseasons. But he said it felt more wide open this year, perhaps due to the increasing number of players in the portal and the number of scholarships Indiana had available.

Whatever the root cause, or whatever subtle adjustments IU made in actually pitching itself to players in the portal, it allowed the Hoosiers to compile a more complete roster than they had last season.

Woodson, like many college coaches, may prefer to build his team with high schoolers that stay and develop for several years, in an ideal world. He may not want to bring in three, four, or five new players from the transfer portal the way he has the last few offseasons. But he knows it’s the reality of the current college sports landscape.

“It’s what it is. You just don’t know. I would love to grow a team with high school kids and they stay with me for four years. But those days are gone,” Woodson said. “You’ll get a player that’s disgruntled, ‘Hey, I want more minutes.’ I’m trying to put a team together that you can’t worry about minutes. It’s got to be about team and you’ve got to commit to team because then everything else takes care of itself.”

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