Indiana Basketball: Two Big Ten transfers that IU could think about
By Adam Childs
Matt Haarms – Purdue
Yes, he is from the Hoosiers hated rival and is a guy that could get under your skin. But it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that a guy switches to his rival school. It has happened in the past and will happen again, probably sooner than later.
Haarms is a 7’3″ big man that disrupts everything inside. He does struggle to guard guys when he is stretched outside but with his height and wingspan he defends the inside about as well as anybody in the conference.
He has never been able to quite find his spot at Purdue and decided it was time to move on and hopefully find a bigger role. It seemed that the Boilermakers didn’t run the right offense to fit Haarms skill set. But then again he would disappear a lot during games.
Last year Haarms averaged just under nine points a game in just over 20 minutes a game. He was passed on the depth chart by Trevion Williams who made a big leap last year. With the emergence of Williams, it left Haarms as the odd man out a lot of times.
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Haarms will likely not even look at Indiana, but is it someone who the Hoosiers should look at? Having a guy with that size is never a bad thing. Brunk is the tallest Hoosier currently at 6’11” and Haarms is a full four inches taller than him. Having Haarms size down low would absolutely open up the other side for Brunk or more importantly Jackson-Davis.
Jackson-Davis has shown he can score on his own, but having somebody that the other team has to worry about on the other side would make life easier. With a scorer like Jackson-Davis to compliment Haarms would only make him better on the offensive side. The defense would not be able to concentrate on both of them and would free one of them up.
Most fans will think he isn’t worth the trouble and the Hoosiers have what they need, but how often do you have a 7’3″ player on your team.