BLOOMINGTON — Not sure what kind of world we’re living in, where a brand as big as the 2026-27 Indiana basketball team can make its first public appearance in a game that isn’t televised, streamed or carried by carrier pigeon. And while you might think you wouldn’t miss much when the Hoosiers play an uncompetitive prep school from Canada, there were some IU plays – because there are some IU players – you needed to see Wednesday night in their 98-64 exhibition victory at Assembly Hall.
You needed to see that dunk by Prince-Alexander Moody, a 6-foot-4 freshman from Maryland who gathered a loose ball and headed for the rim with the obvious intention of dunking on everyone from Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. Moody picks up his dribble near the top of the key, a sleeve on his surgically repaired left leg that was badly broken in seventh grade, and it sure seems like he’s a long way from the rim to try to dunk … never mind. Sleeve or not, once-mangled leg or not, Prince-Alexander Moody is still some kind of athlete. Two steps and one explosion after picking up his dribble, that was some kind of dunk. He also made a trio of 3-pointers and scored 13 points in 17 minutes, but we’re moving on.
Because you needed to see the shooting range of Aiden Sherrell, a 6-11, 255-pound junior transfer from Alabama – and make no mistake, he is every bit that size. Sherrell would’ve been the largest player at IU last season, and he would’ve been the largest player on the floor Wednesday night, by a large margin, had it not been for another IU transfer: 7-2, 280-pound Samet Yigitoglu, a junior transfer from SMU.
You really needed to see 7-2, 280 pound Samet Yigitoglu.
But hang on, because you haven’t seen the range of shooting range of Sherrell. He was catching-and-shooting all night long, making two and almost hitting several more as he scored 16 points in 25 minutes. And at the other end, Sherrell was blotting out the light at the rim, blocking three shots, not a big surprise considering this team from Canada was tiny and considering Sherrell was 13th in the country in blocked shots last season at 2.2 per game.
Sherrell (11.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 33.8% on 3’s last season at Alabama) was offering rim protection we never saw a year ago from the Hoosiers, who were too small for the Big Ten. Sherrell by himself can fix that, the way he defends the rim, but did I mention he’s not even the biggest player in the Indiana starting lineup?
So how good is 7-2, 280 pound Samet Yigitoglu? Well, he averaged 10.7 ppg, 7.9 rpg and 1.3 bpg last season at SMU, but he won’t reach those averages this season – he’ll probably have numbers closer to the six points, five rebounds and one block he had Wednesday – because Yigitoglu doesn’t seem to offer much more than size. He will play a role for IU, and it’ll be useful, but he won’t be filling any stat sheets near you.
Who will be filling stat sheets?
You gotta see IU basketball freshmen Vaughn Karvala and Trevor Manhertz
Well, you needed to see two other IU freshmen, similarly built wings Vaughn Karvala (6-7, 195 pounds) of Wisconsin and Trevor Manhertz (6-8, 185) from North Carolina. They are rangy and bouncy and appear equally comfortable shooting 3’s or attacking the rim, and combined for 16 points in 37 minutes Wednesday.
All those names right there, all that size – not to mention the athletic ability of Moody, Manhertz and Karvala – show how different these Hoosiers will be from the 2025-26 IU basketball team. Part of the difference no doubt comes from the lessons learned last season by Indiana basketball coach Darian DeVries during his first year on the job in Bloomington. The roster he put together last season, and put together quickly, was small and limited, not terribly athletic or chock full of shooters.
Part of the IU roster improvement, last year to this season, no doubt is due to the addition of executive director of basketball Ryan Carr, the former IU student-manager under Bob Knight who had spent the previous 23 years with the Pacers, rising from scout to senior vice president of player personnel. Carr knows what a good college basketball player looks, he knows how to project a young player’s improvement from year to year, and he knows how to piece together a team under a salary cap.
Doyel in 2020: Bob Knight’s IU student-managers, including Ryan Carr, rule the sports world
DeVries, of course, is the one tasked with coaching this team and getting it into the 2027 NCAA Tournament – and while he has one of the best rosters IU could buy in the transfer portal, not to mention a solid freshman class, his biggest contribution to the 2026–27 Indiana basketball roster stems from a move he made four years and three jobs ago.
It was in 2022, when he was coaching at Drake – which he left for West Virginia in 2025 before coming to Indiana last year – that DeVries became the first Division I coach to offer a scholarship to an undersized point guard from Mishawaka, Indiana. That player’s name is Markus Burton, and you probably know the rest of the story:
Burton went on to become the 2023 IndyStar Indiana Mr. Basketball winner, then go to Notre Dame and become ACC freshman of the year and an electric scorer before entering the transfer portal after his injury-shortened junior season. Where would Burton, one of the most highly sought players in the most recent transfer portal, end up? You know where. To play for the big state school that had ignored him in high school, now led by the first D-I coach to believe in him four years earlier.
“I’ve known coach DeVries for a very long time,” Burton told IndyStar recently. “When a coach trusts you and believes in you to lead his team, that means a lot, and that shows who he really is as a person. I can’t wait to play for him.”
Considering his résumé and talent, Burton didn’t show as much Wednesday night as you might have expected. There’s a reason for that, though, and it’s beautiful: He was letting his teammates shine.
IU basketball’s Markus Burton was magnanimous, except for that one time
You needed to see Burton pass up wide open 3-pointers to dump the ball inside to Sherrill for a layup, and even to pass it to another open shooter (Manhertz) for a 3-pointer. Burton, who attempted a shot nearly every two minutes at Notre Dame – where he averaged 19.1 ppg and 3.8 assists in three seasons – took just six shots in 22 minutes Wednesday. He had 11 points and six assists.
And you really needed to see the disdain, yes disdain, Burton showed a Canadian player, whose name I’m not including because Google wouldn’t forget – and I’m hoping this young man can forget the disdain, yes disdain, Burton showed him when this kid picked up Burton 90 feet from the basket. To say Burton was unimpressed would be an understatement. After passing up shots all day long, he decided to teach the impertinent Canadian a lesson. He went right at him for 90 feet, dribbling between his legs several times until shouldering him out of the way for an 8-foot jumper.
What did Wednesday night mean for the Hoosiers? Well, it was a tuneup for their trip to Peru, where they will represent the United States in the FISU America Games, which is why they wore “USA” jerseys – not IU candy stripes – and were referred to, by the public-address announcer at Assembly Hall, as “Team USA.”
Beyond that, the individual statistics from one game against a team like Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf are misleading to the point of meaninglessness. But this IU team is bigger and more athletic than it was a year ago, and it has a wider array of shooters. Did we mention the transfer wings from Duke (6-5 junior Darren Harris) and Villanova (6-3 junior Bryce Lindsay)?
One year after almost reaching the 2026 NCAA Tournament with a roster devoid of sufficient size and quickness, DeVries will show what he can do with a roster more worthy of the name Indiana.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Doyel: Take my word for it: IU basketball is bigger, deeper and more athletic than a year ago
Reporting by Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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By Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
