Game Times Set For Indiana's Basketball Exhibitions in Bahamas in August
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Things are starting to come together for Indiana's basketball trip to the Bahamas in August. The game times for their two exhibition games with Serbian professional club BC Mega are now set.
The first game will be on Friday, Aug. 13 at 7:30 p.m. ET and the finale will be on Sunday, Aug. 15 at 1 p.m. ET. The exhibition games will not be televised.
These will be the first games played under the direction of Mike Woodson, who replaced Archie Miller in late March as Indiana's head coach. The Hoosiers also will be allowed to have 10 practices to prepare for the trip, which will help immensely with installing new offenses and defenses.
“I think this opportunity will be extremely beneficial to the young men in our program,” Woodson said in a release from the school. “They’ve worked extremely hard this summer and to have the chance to test yourselves against professional basketball players is invaluable.
'We’ll be able to learn a lot about ourselves and we’ll use that to our advantage as we prepare for our official practices to start in late September and games in early November.”
BC Mega plays in the ABA League First Division, the top professional league that includes clubs from the former Yugoslavia – now separate countries Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Norh Macedonia, Montenegro an Bosnia and Herzogonvia. They were 18-15 in league play last year.
They are a talented professional team, so it will be a stern test for Indiana in the Bahamas. BC Mega's top player is shooting guard Nikola Jovic, who is a projected lottery pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. He is 6-foot-10, just turned 18 and averaged 15.8 points last season.
Point guard Dayshon “Scoochie” Smith played at Dayton from 2013-17 and averaged 13.8 points as a senior and had 498 career assists.
Indiana has nine players returning from its 12-15 season, including All-American Trayce Jackson-Davis, who was the only high-major player to average 19 points and nine rebounds or more last season. He's the first returning All-American player at Indiana since Calbert Cheaney in 1993.
It will be the first appearance in Indiana uniforms for the four transfers, former Pittsburgh point guard Xavier Johnson, former South Florida center Michael Durr, former Northwestern forward Miller Kopp and former UT-Martin guard Parker Stewart.
They all have plenty of NCAA experience, starting a combined total of 284 games already. Johnson (81 career starts), Durr (85), Kopp (74) and Stewart (44) all can play two years at Indiana.
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