The Indiana basketball team has a lot of talent coming back for the 2020-21 season, but it still has some question marks and things to answer.
The 2019-20 basketball season ended much earlier than anyone in the country wanted it to The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted most conference tournaments and took away the NCAA tournament. It hurt some teams more than others, but it had an effect on almost every team.
For the Hoosiers, it took away a probable berth to the Big Dance for the first time in three years. Indiana had just beaten Nebraska in the first round of the Big Ten tournament when the college basketball and all sports came to a halt.
The Hoosiers had struggled through some parts of the season but had picked up huge upset wins along the way. They had ranked wins against Florida State, Ohio State, Michigan State, Iowa, and Penn State.
Despite their 11th place finish in the Big Ten, their resume looked plenty good enough to get them into the tournament. The only thing that was holding them back was their very soft November non-conference schedule.
The Big Ten, though, was the best conference in the country and helped Indiana’s strength of schedule to give them that push into the tournament.
The 2019-20 season saw the emergence of freshman Trayce Jackson-Davis as one of the best big men in the country. Jackson-Davis led the team in scoring and rebounding and was a double-double machine.
It also again showed the troubles the Hoosiers have shooting the ball from the outside and that would be their Achilles heel. Because of the poor shooting, Indiana was plagued with too many scoring droughts and it cost them more than a couple of games.
Archie Miller is trying to fix that with the recruiting class coming in and hopefully, the team will be more complete in 2020-21.
With so much flux in the Big Ten this offseason, the Hoosiers are primed to make a run at the top of the conference, but they need to answer a few questions first. So we take a look at the three biggest questions for the Hoosiers this offseason.