Why Indiana's transfer portal strategy is raising eyebrows across college basketball

The Indiana Hoosiers are having quite the week.

Darian DeVries has added six new players to Indiana's 2026-27 roster through the portal since Monday. According to On3's College Basketball Team Transfer Portal Rankings, Indiana currently boasts the No. 1 portal class in the country. DeVries is putting together quite the squad, and he is putting the college basketball world on notice in the process.

Darian DeVries has learned from his previous portal strategy

It's clear that DeVries is using a much more effective approach to the transfer portal than what he did at this time last year. Last offseason, DeVries built IU's roster around experienced transfers who logged a lot of minutes for mid-major programs. Many of them had just one season of eligibility remaining when they arrived in Bloomington.

Using that approach, Indiana's 2025 portal class consisted of Tucker DeVries from West Virginia, Lamar Wilkerson from Sam Houston State, Reed Bailey from Davidson, Nick Dorn from Elon, Tayton Conerway from Troy, Jasai Miles from North Florida, Josh Harris from North Florida, Conor Enright from DePaul, Sam Alexis from Florida, and Jason Drake from Drexel. The class was ranked as the No. 10 portal class in the country by 247Sports.

That strategy didn't work as DeVries intended. Throughout the season, it was clear the Indiana lacked the size, physicality, athleticism, and scoring depth needed to pickup the necessary wins to qualify for the NCAA Tournament.

Now, the Hoosier head coach is taking a new approach to the portal, and it has IU fans fired up for the future.

Darian DeVries has learned from his previous portal strategy

Indiana's current portal class of Jaeden Mustaf, Darren Harris, Markus Burton, Samet Yigitoglu, Aiden Sherrell, and Bryce Lindsay give the Hoosiers a more dynamic, athletic, and bigger roster than this past season. But that's not what is raising eyebrows.

All six of IU's incoming transfers all have multiple years of high-major experience and all have multiple years of eligibility remaining. That is a stark contrast from DeVries' portal class from a season ago.

Of Indiana's 10 incoming transfers last year, zero players had multiple seasons of experience at the high-major level and only four had multiple years of eligibility remaining.

It's a much-needed new approach that Hoosier basketball fans have been begging for.

In the short term, finding more experienced players from the Power 4 level gives fans more confidence in what the Hoosiers can do in Year 2 of the DeVries era. In the long term, Indiana's sustainability for 2026 and beyond seems to be in better shape than it was throughout this past season.

As DeVries continues to round out Indiana's roster for next season, be sure to follow along with the latest developments using our 2026 Indiana Basketball Transfer Portal Tracker.

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