Top 40 Indiana basketball players of all-time: #34 Dean Garrett

Indiana basketball is now less than five weeks away from the start of the 2022-23 season where the Hoosiers have a lot of hype. Let’s focus that hype for now on the No. 34 best Indiana basketball player of all-time in our Top 40 countdown.

This 6-foot-10 center helped the Hoosiers snag their fifth banner back in 1987 and was the fourth leading scorer on that team. He wasn’t known for his scoring ability in 1986-87, more-so his ability to block anything and everything that came around the rim.

Top 40 Indiana basketball players of all-time

Indiana basketball career stats: 13.6 PPG, 8.5 RPG, 3.0 BLK, 53.8 FG%

In the Hoosiers 1987 title run, Dean Garrett averaged 14.2 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game while playing 33.0 minutes per game. Garrett was Bob Knight’s anchor in the paint and came up big in the 1987 Final Four against UNLV with 18 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks. Yet, that wasn’t even his best game in an IU uniform.

Garrett’s best game (below) with Indiana basketball came on January 30, 1988, where the Hoosiers were taking on then-ranked No. 2 in the country, Purdue at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. Bob Knight’s team, after winning the 1987 National Championship, started off the season 10-6, having already lost to three ranked opponents before this game (#2 Kentucky, #16 Iowa, and #7 Michigan). Unfortunately for Purdue, they could not figure out how to slow down senior center, Dean Garrett, in this game. The leading scorer for the Hoosiers finished the game with 30 points and took down the Boilermakers, 82-79.

Since Garrett only played the two seasons for Bob Knight and Indiana basketball before getting drafted, he doesn’t find himself in the top 10 of many statistical categories for careers at IU, but he does rank in the top two all-time in the following statistical categories in a single season:

Total blocks – 99 in 1987-88 (1st) & 93 in 1986-87 (2nd)
Blocks per game – 3.4 in 1987-88 (1st) & 2.7 in 1986-87 (2nd)

In his two-year career in Bloomington, Garrett was still able to make a name for himself with the sixth most blocks (192) in IU history and the best blocks per game average (3.0) in a career at IU. Garrett left Bloomington with a Big Ten Rookie of the Year honor in 1986-87 and All-Big Ten honors in 1987-88 before getting drafted 38th overall in the 1988 NBA Draft by the Phoenix Suns.

Which all-time Hoosier great comes in at No. 33 on my all-time Indiana basketball players list as we get closer and closer to tip-off for the 2022-23 season? Check back tomorrow!