After falling to the Northwestern Wildcats for the second time in a month, the Indiana Hoosiers are probably not going to make the NCAA Tournament now. Darian DeVries' team had been in and around the cut line for weeks now. However, a dismal showing down the stretch and an atrocious record vs. Quad 1 opponents are among the biggest reasons Indiana is not going to March Madness this year.
That being said, this season should serve as a great jumping-off point for DeVries and his staff. The trials and tribulations from this campaign will not have been for naught. There are so many lessons to be learned from all this. In addition to having a better feel for the Big Ten after having come over from West Virginia only a year ago, having stronger footing in Bloomington should help in recruitment, too.
That right there may be the biggest thing to re-ignite the fire in IU hoops that has long been missing. Do you realize how many of their upperclassmen were transfer portal pickups? Fate would have it that all six members of their senior class came over to Indiana in the transfer portal during last offseason in Lamar Wilkerson, Tucker DeVries, Sam Alexis, Tayton Conerway, Reed Bailey, and Conor Enright...
All had a role to play, but DeVries cannot expect to live and die by the portal again during next season.
Darian DeVries has to build Indiana from the ground up out of high school
Look. Wilkerson was a spectacular player for Indiana this season, but the Sam Houston transfer was just not good enough to overcome all of the Hoosiers' inherent deficiencies. While DeVries' own son Tucker certainly made the most of this season at IU, he too followed his dad from Drake to West Virginia to Indiana... Truth be told, this year's team was flawed in construction from the very start of it.
Admittedly, it is hard to say what all went wrong with this team-building philosophy for Indiana. While being too transfer portal-heavy crushed the Hoosiers in the end, teams like Georgia and Miami have been buoyed by it. DeVries could feel compelled to add more seasoned players from other leagues, but none of them have competed in the Big Ten before. Frankly, they all got exposed by better teams.
To tie a bow on this, DeVries has to not only level up as a head coach, but as a recruiter and overall talent evaluator. There were moments this past season that led us to believe he could have IU back to what it was under peak Tom Crean, if not better. However, Indiana has to do more than beat Purdue at home. Indiana cannot get embarrassed by the likes of Illinois, Michigan, or Michigan State regularly.
Right now, next year's team has to be better because this always felt like sort of a gap year anyway...