Bryson Tucker Goes Into Transfer Portal As Indiana Reset Continues

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – And then there was … maybe one?

The exodus of 2025 Indiana players into transfer portal continued on Friday as On3Sports.com reported that Bryson Tucker had put himself into the portal.

NEWS: Indiana guard Bryson Tucker is entering the transfer portal, source told @on3sports. ⁰⁰The 6-7 freshman is a former McDonalds’ All-American. https://t.co/wLS0t7ZCBz pic.twitter.com/rYJATonbnH
— Joe Tipton (@TiptonEdits) March 28, 2025

Technically, Tucker was the last player from Indiana’s 2024-25 season that had still been eligible to play in the 2025-26 season. The rest of his Indiana teammates who had eligibility all entered the portal by Wednesday.

Luke Goode could be back for the Hoosiers if an injury waiver from his 2023 season at lllinois was granted. If it is not, new Indiana coach Darian DeVries will have a complete roster makeover to rebuild the Hoosiers in his image.

Tucker, from Arlington, Va., had a mixed freshman season with the Hoosiers.

He was a five-star recruit from Arlington, Va. He played at Bishop O’Connell High School – the same school that Indiana point guard Xavier Johnson played at.

A 6-foot-6 guard, he came to Indiana late in the recruiting cycle. He committed to the Hoosiers in the spring of 2024.

Tucker came off the bench in all 23 games he played for the Hoosiers. During the nonconference portion of the schedule, he regularly played between 14-28 minutes per game. One thing that Tucker demonstrated right from the start was a deadly fade-away jumper. Tucker had the propensity to penetrate into the lane, typically near the elbow. He would draw a defender or two, but fade off of them for a jumper. It was a difficult shot to defend if you weren’t prepared for it.

Bryson Tucker. — Indiana's Bryson Tucker (8) shoots during the Indiana versus Chattanooga men's basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2204. | Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Once Big Ten play began, Tucker’s minutes began to decline along with his production and Big Ten opponents scouted his jump shot and defended it more effectively.

After Dec. 9, he never had another game where he reached double-figure scoring. After 25 and 23-minute games against USC and Iowa in early January, he only broke 20 minutes one more time for the remainder of the season.

Tucker missed four games in mid-January for reasons unannounced by the Hoosiers, though Mike Woodson mentioned a vague injury on a late January radio show appearance, Woodson’s last as it turned out.

Tucker returned to action in Indiana’s near-miss loss at Purdue on Jan. 31. He played four more games after that – none of them in a prominent role apart from 24 minutes played at Wisconsin in a game that was out of the Hoosiers’ hands by the second media timeout.

After Tucker played five minutes in a loss to UCLA on Feb. 14, he did not play again, even though he was around the team for the entirety of the time he did not play. He was never listed as out or doubtful on the Big Ten availability reports.

No explanation was given for Tucker's absence. Whether it was an injury, a disagreement with the coaching staff or whether he was shut down for an otherwise unexplained reason has not yet been publicly revealed.

Tucker is the seventh player from Indiana’s 2024-25 roster to go into the transfer portal. One player, Gabe Cupps, has already found a landing spot at Ohio State.

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