Indiana Basketball: Predicting the lineups for the 2019-2020 season

Hoosier Hysteria has passed and it’s the dawn of a new season of Indiana basketball, and with every new season comes new decisions to make.

Archie Miller has the benefit of having a lot of versatile pieces on his Indiana basketball roster this year, which means he has a lot at his disposal in terms of picking lineups.

Talented freshmen Trayce Jackson-Davis and Armaan Franklin are set to play an important role as well as graduate transfer Joey Brunk. Jerome Hunter is back from his leg surgery and gives the Hoosiers another top-50 talent, albeit a rusty top-50 talent.

Miller also has reliable returning players such as seniors Devonte Green and De’Ron Davis, and junior Al Durham, who will provide the leadership for the team.

There are a lot of potential lineups, each with a multitude of positives and negatives, but that’s the beauty of the chess-like strategy of basketball.

Indiana basketball media day and Big Ten media day gave us two pieces of key information for the lineups this upcoming year. One, Indiana will play an old school 3-out 2-in offense to take advantage of the size and talent the Hoosiers have in the frontcourt. Two, Al Durham will have a greater role as the primary ball-handler than he has in years past.

Given that we know these two things, it narrows down some of the potential lineups IU could use. However, there are still a lot of questions. Will Rob Phinisee take a backseat to Durham with ball-handling duties in certain lineups? Will they use another 3 guard offense similar to last year? How does Justin Smith play into all of this?

I’ve narrowed those potential lineups down to the four that I’d most like to see and that I think are most probable.