- IU landed Payton Sparks (Ball State) and Kel'el Ware (Oregon) to shore up frontcourt.
- But Mike Woodson and staff have missed on other targets that would have helped shore up the backcourt.
BLOOMINGTON – Though the frost on the ground might suggest otherwise, it is fully spring here in Bloomington.
Indiana’s baseball season is building toward a promising climax. Little 500 weekend just finished. The end of the semester — and with it, the bulk of the academic year — is in sight.
And, with three scholarships still open, a point guard’s waiver situation still unresolved and a pair of tough recruiting beats recently absorbed, restlessness has bittered the bones of IU’s basketball fan base ahead of the approaching summer.
After a strong start to the portal window, adding Ball State forward Payton Sparks and Oregon center Kel’el Ware to reinforce a frontcourt hit hard by graduation, IU’s best-laid plans have faltered. Chiefly, the Hoosiers missed out on Chris Ledlum, a wing/forward transfer from Harvard they invested significant time in recruiting, when Ledlum picked Tennessee last week.
Coupled to the apparent inability to seriously engage a target at off guard (the Hoosiers were linked at various points to Dalton Knecht and Cormac Ryan), Ledlum’s decision was a body blow to those plans, which had been going smoothly until Wednesday afternoon.
Concern might outpace reality amid suggestions Indiana’s roster rebuild is crumbling. But the past week has been a timely reminder both to a program and also its interested observers the transfer portal moves fast and works best for those ready to react at the same speed.
It’s important to recognize what Indiana has achieved so far in the portal.
Sparks was hyperproductive across two seasons in Muncie. He’s an in-state player whose passion for IU is already apparent, and there are elements of his game — his rebounding ability in particular — that tend to translate well across levels.
In Ware, the Hoosiers add a player of immense upside, a one-time top-10 recruit with NBA measurables and upside, good feet, excellent hands and the potential to step away from the rim with real threat offensively. If Mike Woodson can unlock some of the same intangibles in Ware that he did Trayce Jackson-Davis, IU has a dangerous big man in the locker room once again.
Insider:Kel’el Ware’s pledge turns important page for Mike Woodson’s IU project
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A frontcourt that lost basically four seasons worth of reliable production when the season ended has now been remade into something different, but certainly still something Woodson can mold positively ahead of next season.
It’s the other side of the rotation that needs work now.
Xavier Johnson’s argument for a sixth season of eligibility has not yet been answered, meaning the Hoosiers don’t have surety (yet) at point guard beyond incoming freshman Gabe Cupps.
And the lack of a firm plan beside Johnson will be a glaring hole until it’s filled. Knecht would have been a sensible option, but he’s joining Ledlum at Tennessee. Ryan would also have made sense, but he’s headed to North Carolina. Other more peripheral options, like UNC's Michigan-bound transfer Caleb Love, never seemed to gain much traction and might not have made much sense anyway.
Something needs to, though. IU needs backcourt and wing production — at both ends of the floor — and it needs bodies. Ten is not an acceptable scholarship roster number to roll into the season relying upon.
But it’s important to remember spring recruiting doesn’t work the way it used to. There’s not a fixed talent pool from which everyone with needs is trying to draw, slowly winnowing down options left for the losers out.
The portal evolves throughout the window. Players don’t enter all at once. Circumstances change, and priorities do too. There ought to be, for example, a handful of players currently going through the NBA draft process who eventually pull out of that but enter the portal by the May 11 deadline for non-grad transfers.
IU’s ability to fill its remaining needs — the Hoosiers could use production at the 2 and versatility at the 3, the latter depending upon Kaleb Banks’ progress — will be defined by how quickly the Hoosiers adapt. We’re less in hidden-gems territory and more facing a period in which teams that can move quickly and decisively when the portal presents an opportunity will be rewarded.
More briefly, all is not lost, provided the right breaks and, more importantly, the right response.
Indiana has work left to do if it’s going to execute the roster reconstruction necessary, after such a substantial production drain to begin the offseason. But the window to complete that work is by no means closing, at least not yet.
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.
