BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Here come the Indiana Hoosiers. We know this because of the candy-striped warmup pants, not because of any familiar faces, because there aren’t any. And not because of the way they play, because that’s different too. The three-pointers that used to trickle around here? Now they gush.
Want to witness the power of the portal? You’ve come to the right place. Indiana just might be the poster school for how quickly karma can be brightened in the transfer age — it’s trending that direction, anyway. Come along for a visit this past Wednesday.
The basketball team is warming up to play Milwaukee. There are 10 transfers out there on the court. Not one point came back from last season. But while we wait for tipoff, gaze across the parking lot at the dark football stadium — the site of the renaissance.
There dwells a program that, not long ago, had 14 winning seasons in 76 years. Then Curt Cignetti came to town. What did he do? He turned on the portal like it’s a fire hose. Google him. There were 30 transfers last season when Indiana stunned the sport with a 10-0 start and a spot in the playoffs. There were 23 more this season. The Hoosiers are 10-0 again, and when you mention Indiana and national championship contention, nobody laughs — or shouldn’t, anyway. The quarterback who might win the Heisman was 2,200 miles away last season, playing for the California Golden Bears. All this from a program that has been to one Rose Bowl — ever.
To appreciate such dizzying progress, consider this: They’ve been playing football at Indiana since 1887, the year construction began on the Eiffel Tower and Sherlock Holmes was introduced. Four percent of the Hoosiers’ all-time wins in the sport have come in the past 14½ months.
Indiana’s portal dollars at work.
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Back to Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. This might have been considered a basketball school since James Naismith’s peach baskets, but now it’s the hoopers who are trying to follow the football game plan — new coach, new roster, new ideas.
Darian DeVries has done the coaching three-step the past three seasons — from Drake to West Virginia to Indiana — packing his clothes, his notebooks and his son Tucker for each move. Now Tucker is one of five new Hoosiers averaging in double figures.
When the Hoosiers ran over Milwaukee 101-70 Wednesday — three days after they flattened Marquette 100-77 and a week after a 98-51 breeze past Alabama A&M — they moved to 3-0. The largest deficit in three games has been three points, and the average winning margin is 33.7. They’ve scored 90-plus points in their first three games for the first time in 18 years, made at least 14 three-pointers in consecutive games for the first time in 20 seasons and topped 100 points in consecutive regular-season games for the first time since 2005.
They have a bunch of guys who had never played together in their lives until this past summer, but already they’re glued together enough to have handed out 73 assists in three games — the third-highest average in the nation. Only 30 Indiana field goals so far have been scored without an assist.
After the game Wednesday, DeVries tried to explain what’s going on. “I think it’s just a lot of the intentionality of who we brought here and then their willingness to be a part of that. We talk to them a lot about this is how we can win. If we all stay true to that, we’re going to have a lot of fun and have some success. But that is the path. From the summer, the first day they got on campus to us starting to play games, they bought into it. They enjoy it. They embrace it.
“So usually in the locker room you can tell when it’s real or not. These guys genuinely just love playing basketball, and they’re a lot of fun to watch together.”
Or as forward Reed Bailey said, this is happening “just because all the guys here are here to win… I think it’s contagious. When everybody else wants to share the ball and we’re all moving it, it makes you want to buy in and really do that.”
And it’s not just that Indiana’s season has taken off like a drag racer, but how. DeVries’ predecessor, Mike Woodson, treated the three-point shot like a rich fudge cake best consumed in moderation. In the past four seasons, the Hoosiers have ranked 314th, 341st, 324th and 304th nationally in three-pointers per game.
At the close of business Wednesday, this Indiana team is tied for 15th. The Hoosiers are making 47.5% of their tries, sixth-best in the country. It’s bombs away in Bloomington.
“We have a really confident group. They’re very sure of themselves,” DeVries said the other day. “And they know that they have the green light.”
So what’s worked for football might work for basketball. Cignetti sought not only new faces but experience. He has 28 players on the roster who are in their final season of eligibility. DeVries’ 10 transfers started a combined 554 college games before they landed in Bloomington. All 10 had answered at least 30 opening bells. And already they seem to fit into a collective producing 100 points a game.
“Yeah, I don’t know if that’s sustainable,” DeVries said. “But hopefully what they see is not just the points. Hopefully they see guys that play the right way — they play hard, they play unselfish, they share the ball, they understand cutting, moving, screening for one another.
“That’s what ultimately we want people to really take joy in — that they just like watching this team play together.”
While Cignetti needed to bring a new age to football, so in a way must DeVries. Indiana is routinely included among the blue bloods because of its rich history, but if there were a requirement to do something to stay in good standing in that club, the Hoosiers might already have been put on double-secret probation. Indiana owns one victory in the past eight NCAA tournaments, has finished in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll once in the past 32 years and has one Final Four trip since 1992. That doesn’t sound much like Duke.
If the glory days are to be rekindled, the process apparently will begin with a parade from the portal — the same way football reinvented itself. In some ways, looking at Indiana basketball right now is like looking at Indiana football, no matter their vastly different past pedigrees. There seems to be a synergy at work here.
DeVries stood in a hallway after his team’s latest offensive clinic Wednesday and pondered the idea.
“I can’t say that for sure, but I know it’s a lot of fun. There’s just a good vibe around town. There’s certainly a lot of positivity going on that’s connected together.”
It’s a new portal world, and Indiana is living in it.
