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Indiana men’s basketball kicks of the 2026-27 season, the second under Darian DeVries, Monday night against Eastern Illinois on Big Ten Plus. This is the kind of game made for Big Ten Plus, as Eastern Illinois starts the year 360th out of 365 teams ranked nationally by KenPom.
You’d have to go back to the first year of the Archie Miller era to find a year when Indiana lost to a team worse than 120th in KenPom, let alone a team a full 240 spots lower, so this isn’t going to be one to watch for the end result. Instead, it’s about seeing what Indiana’s got, who plays well with who, and what spots guys are put in.
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For the third year in a row, Indiana has almost an entirely new roster, so there should be plenty of kinks to work out in games like this and the Thursday matchup with Bellarmine before taking on Syracuse next week.
Here’s what to watch for:
Interior play
In year one in the Big Ten, DeVries’ group struggled with just about everything you can do inside. Rebounding was rough on both ends, the offense got a lot of shots blocked, and the defense didn’t block a lot of shots.
All of that should change this year with the additions of Aiden Sherrell and Samet Ygitoglu. The two big men transferred in from Alabama and SMU, respectively, and should both be a big part of what Indiana wants to do this year.
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Against a team like Eastern Illinois, the pair should look even more dominant. We won’t see too much of the playbook, I’d think, but it’ll be interesting to see how many plays end with inside shots versus the 3-pointers Indiana relied on last year.
Darren Harris
Darren Harris is one of the most intriguing players on this team, in part of how little we know about him. He’s never averaged ten minutes per game on a season, but mostly because of the NBA players ahead of him in the lineup at Duke.
When he did get extended run a few times last year, Harris was able to show why he was a high four-star recruit. Against Notre Dame, for example, he had 16 points on 2-5…
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Publish date : 2026-11-02 14:00:00
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