Indiana Basketball: 3 questions for the Hoosiers this offseason

Indiana Basketball: Who fills two open scholarships?

When the offseason began the Hoosiers had one open scholarship spot. They were hoping that the spot would be taken by Khristian Lander after he reclassified to the 2020 class.  As expected Lander did move to the 2020 class and he did take that spot. Unfortunately, two other sports unexpectedly opened up.

Damezi Anderson and Justin Smith decided to transfer out of the program. Anderson moved on to Loyola, Chicago and Smith just announced he was headed to Arkansas. Anderson wasn’t getting much playing time so the fact that he transferred wasn’t a huge surprise but the Smith transfer was fairly unexpected.

Due to those two guys leaving the program the Hoosiers suddenly have two open scholarship spots that they need to fill for the upcoming season. How the Miller and company will fill those is still a huge question mark.

They should have a pretty good team even if they don’t get another player in, but there is no reason to leave two scholarship spots open. The only thought would be they don’t want to tie up that spot with a guy they could be “settling” on.

If you aren’t sold on any of the high school seniors, then the other option would be to go after a graduate transfer that would only tie up a scholarship spot for one or two years. But with every passing transfer that goes somewhere else, it doesn’t seem like Miller is very interested in that option.

There have been some good transfers out there that looked like they would be a good fit for the Hoosiers, but Indiana has not been heard of on any of them. It makes sense not to be chasing a bunch of transfers, but this late in the recruiting cycle it also will be hard to get some high school kids to commit to the program, and more importantly ones you think you will fit your system.

It looks like Miller is probably looking at the graduating seniors and trying to find that diamond in the rough. The DailyHoosier reported last week that the Hoosiers may be in on a 7-footer who is just now getting some attention. Bringing him in would definitely help with the void in the middle of the size that the Hoosiers currently have, but he is probably not ready to play right away and would be more of a project.

It will be interesting to see what Miller and his coaching staff decided to do with the two remaining scholarships and it is something to keep your eye on.

Could Miller pull in another steal and really solidify this team for next year?