Three Biggest Offseason Concerns For Indiana Under Darian DeVries

It's been nearly two weeks since Indiana's first season under coach Darian DeVries ended in concerning fashion, losing six of its final seven games, including a 74-61 loss to a 15-19 Northwestern team in the Big Ten Tournament.

DeVries had the Hoosiers in a good spot to reach the NCAA Tournament in mid-February, but the late-season collapse meant a third straight year in which Indiana would not participate in March Madness.

That puts the pressure on DeVries to improve in year two, and this week we'll evaluate the main reasons for pessimism and optimism heading into the 2026-27 season, beginning with the three biggest reasons to be concerned.

1. Few, if any, building blocks for the future

Nick Dorn Indiana Basketball — Indiana Hoosiers guard Nick Dorn (7) drives to the basket against the UCLA Bruins at Pauley Pavilion presented by Wescom Financial. | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

Missing the NCAA Tournament would be easier to stomach if Indiana had a young, promising core that could return the following season and realistically make big strides. But that's not the case, as Indiana's top five scorers and starting point guard are all graduating: Lamar Wilkerson (20.9 ppg) Tucker DeVries (13.7 ppg), Tayton Conerway (9.5 ppg), Sam Alexis (8.8 ppg), Reed Bailey (8.3 ppg) and Conor Enright (4.6 ppg).

Building an older team through the transfer portal in year one is not necessarily a bad plan, but it's a risky one if it doesn't work out. Nine of the Sweet 16 teams have four upperclassmen among their top five scorers. The outliers are Michigan and Houston (three), Arizona, Illinois Arkansas and Alabama (two) and Duke (one).

It's hard to compete at a level with a team full of freshmen and sophomores nowadays, unless the roster has multiple five-star recruits, for example. Having a good first season with an older, departing roster still could have built recruiting momentum for future seasons by making Indiana an attractive destination. But Indiana has found itself in a precarious middle ground.

It didn't win big immediately to create belief in DeVries, and it didn't establish a foundation for the future. Now it's forced to essentially do a full-scale rebuild again. Seven scholarship players could return –– Nick Dorn, Trent Sisley, Jasai Miles, Jason Drake, Josh Harris, Aleksa Ristic and Andrej Acimovic –– but none made convincing cases that they could be starters on a good team next season.

2. DeVries' recruiting pitch and evaluation

Darian DeVries Indiana Basketball — Indiana Hoosiers coach Darian DeVries instructs his team against the Northwestern Wildcats during the first half at United Center. | David Banks-Imagn Images

Indiana arguably has to recruit an entire new starting five for next season, if it's serious about making significant improvements from year one. Dorn, Miles and Sisley could be solid rotational pieces, but the other potential returners hardly played or were injured.

It's also safe to assume departures in the transfer portal at any program, though no one has announced their intentions to enter the portal yet. Accounting for three incoming freshmen in small forward Vaughn Karvala (No. 51), small forward Trevor Manhertz (No. 65) and Prince-Alexander Moody (No. 80), DeVries could still need upwards of seven portal additions.

So, how can DeVries convince high-level transfers to come to Indiana? His work with Lamar Wilkerson is a good start for recruiting guards. Wilkerson led all scorers with 23.2 points per game in Big Ten play, which could help the Hoosiers land a big-time guard or two.

But after that, it's hard to find many selling points from year one, and Indiana's historic prestige is only getting less and less relevant with today's generation. At least with the previous regime, Mike Woodson was able to use his early success with Trayce Jackson-Davis to recruit talented and highly coveted centers like Kel'el Ware and Oumar Ballo. DeVries can't make the same pitch based on the seasons Sam Alexis and Reed Bailey had, or the team's success overall.

Playing time and money are perhaps the most attractive parts about Indiana to incoming transfers. The same could be said about last offseason, too, but DeVries was unable to evaluate, recruit and build a tournament-caliber roster. It's one thing to have money. It's another thing to know how to use it wisely.

Perhaps having an established staff, adding a GM, having more time to recruit and learning lessons from year one will help acquire a roster capable of succeeding in the Big Ten.

3. What's Indiana's identity?

For two straight offseasons, DeVries will be recruiting a mostly new roster and trying to fit the pieces together. That's just the reality, and it doesn't necessarily mean next season can't be successful. But it's certainly a difficult and unsustainable way to operate in the long term.

The best programs in the country typically have a style of play, a culture and principles that their coach requires and recruits to year over year, even when players come and go. It's hard to build that in one year, especially in an era with so much player movement. But it also doesn't feel like DeVries has made much progress, if any, in that department.

It's clear he wants an offense that attempts and makes a lot of 3-pointers, as Indiana ranked top-40 with 9.8 3-pointers made and 28.3 attempted per game. But in games where shots didn't fall, Indiana didn't have a backup plan to lean on, offensively or defensively. Indiana's defense crumbled down the stretch of Big Ten play and wound up No. 65 nationally in adjusted efficiency.

Moving forward, DeVries' efforts in high school should help establish the program's identity and alleviate the need for huge transfer portal classes in future seasons. He has three incoming freshmen in the 2026 class and a top-40 player signed in the 2027 class already. At the same time, it's not an immediate fix, making Indiana's portal recruiting vital again.