Now that the dust is beginning to settle from an always magical Little 500 week in Bloomington, the Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team is looking down right dangerous on paper. With Myles Rice and Oumar Ballo already on board, Mike Woodson could have taken the weekend off. However, he was not quite through with his proposals to promising Pac-12 prospects.
What Indiana and Mike Woodson are doing in the portal right now is special.
— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) April 22, 2024
Hoosiers have commitments from:
No. 1 Transfer Oumar Ballo
No. 10 Transfer Kanaan Carlyle
No. 18 Transfer Miles Rice
Via 247sports
And hold the #1 portal class so far!🔥 pic.twitter.com/X0ekIVW4on
With the 6'3" combo guard Kanaan Carlyle electing to come over to B-Town from Stanford, Mike Woodson has given the Indiana faithful yet another reason to trust his process. While Carlyle certainly needs to fine tune some of the elements of his game (shot selection, ball control, etc.), the Atlanta product is fresh off of an impressive freshman season in which he dropepd 11.5 PPG and 2.7 APG. He may not be the most traditional floor general on the market, but there is a reason he was so highly touted.
Carlyle will bring an intriguing blend of microwave scoring and secondary playmaking to a team that could certainly use a heavy dose of both. While his exact role with the team will take some time to decipher, there is a good chance he will begin the season off the pine given the subtle amount of depth that Mike Woodson has accrued in the backcourt.
Here is what the updated depth chart could/should look like with Carlyle's arrival:
PG | Myles Rice (6'3", 180 lbs | Sophomore), Gabe Cupps (6'2", 175 lbs | Sophomore)
SG | Trey Galloway (6'5", 205 lbs | Senior), Kanaan Carlyle (6'3", 185 lbs | Sophomore), Jakai Newton (6'3", 205 lbs | Sophomore)
SF | Mackenzie Mgbako (6'8", 220 lbs), Bryson Tucker (6'7", 185 lbs | Freshman), Anthony Leal (6'5", 200 lbs | Senior)
PF | Malik Reneau (6'9", 235 lbs | Junior)
C | Oumar Ballo (7'0", 260 lbs | Senior)
Carlyle should provide Woody a dangerous wildcard type of player off the bench who can check into a game and completely take it over without a moment's notice. While that is not the type of expectation that fans should have for him every single time out, it just goes to show the type of potential that he has. It would not be shocking if Carlyle leads the team in scoring on multiple occasions next season.
Mike Woodson and his staff have been fantastic in the preliminary phase of the offseason, but they still have a lot of work to do in patching up some of the most glaring holes that remain outstanding within the crevices of this depth chart. Time will tell when the next domino will fall, but if it is anything like Woodson's first 3 chess moves of the spring then we are in store for a treat.
Welcome to the family, Kanaan!