6-Banner Sunday: Malik Reneau meets the media and how Kaleb Banks could impact IU basketball
6-Banner Sunday is Inside the Hall’s weekly newsletter in partnership with The Assembly Call. More than 9,000 Indiana fans receive the newsletter each week. In addition to appearing each week on the site, you can also opt to receive 6-Banner Sunday by email. A form to subscribe via email is available at the bottom of this week’s 6-Banner Sunday.
Welcome to another edition of 6-Banner Sunday, a joint production between The Assembly Call and Inside the Hall where we highlight the five most essential IU basketball stories of the past week, plus take a look at how the other IU sports programs are doing.
The offseason continues to barrel along and this past week, we heard from one of Indiana’s top freshmen on Thursday in addition to several other news items to fill out another 6-Banner Sunday.
• Freshman Malik Reneau meets the media
• Examining the potential impact of Kaleb Banks
• Big Ten rosters continue to take shape for 2022-23 season
• Indiana a No. 4 seed in latest ESPN Bracketology, Gabe Cupps highlights
• Podcast on the Brink and Doing the Work return for offseason episodes
• Hoosier Roundup
Banner #1 – Freshman Malik Reneau meets the media
Over the course of the summer, Indiana has introduced each of its freshmen to the media via Zoom press conferences. First, it was combo guard Jalen Hood-Schifino, followed by CJ Gunn and Kaleb Banks and this past week, Malik Reneau took his turn.
Inside the Hall’s Tyler Tachman took an in-depth look at Reneau, who could figure in heavily into Indiana’s frontcourt rotation next season despite the fact that Trayce Jackson-Davis and Race Thompson are returning to school.
After several seasons in which the Hoosiers have failed to put together solid backcourt depth behind Jackson-Davis and Thompson, adding a top 30 player should give the IU coaching staff no shortage of options as it pursues a Big Ten title.
Banner #2 – Examining the potential impact of Kaleb Banks
The aforementioned Banks is an intriguing long-term prospect for Indiana basketball.
The Georgia native might be the least known quantity of the newcomers, but appears to possess plenty of upside. Inside the Hall’s Tyler Tachman spoke to Banks’ high school coach, Andre Flynn, to get a sense of what the 6-foot-7 forward will bring to Bloomington next season and maybe more importantly, in the seasons to come.
Banner #3 – Big Ten rosters continue to take shape for 2022-23 season
Even though it’s mid-July, Big Ten programs continue to fill out their rosters for next season.
Inside the Hall continues to maintain the most comprehensive list of Big Ten rosters for the 2022-23 season and a quick scan of the talent in each program reveals that Indiana has assembled one of the best rosters in the league.
Bart Torvik’s preseason ratings seem to support that hypothesis as Indiana is currently ranked 12th in the country for next season.
Banner #4 – Indiana a No. 4 seed in latest ESPN Bracketology, Gabe Cupps highlights
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi updated his Bracketology for the 2023 NCAA tournament last week. Indiana is a No. 4 seed in the South Region and would face Toledo in Albany. That would be the highest NCAA tournament seed for Indiana since 2013, when it earned a No. 1 seed.
Hoosier fans were able to get a glimpse of the future as Inside the Hall published new summer highlights of point guard Gabe Cupps from the adidas 3SSB circuit.
Banner #5 – Podcast on the Brink and Doing the Work return for offseason episodes
Assembly Call had its usual Thursday night radio show this week as Brian Tonsoni and Ryan Phillips discussed this week’s article about IU in The Athletic, reacted to some more player media interviews, and then spent some time discussing in-game coaching tweaks they’d love to see this season as IU looks to build upon last season’s late success.
Two other IU-centric podcasts, returned this week with new episodes. Doing the Work with Jeff Marlow and Kathy Amos had a mid-summer update where they discussed recent headlines, conference realignment and also answered listener questions.
Podcast on the Brink was joined by Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News to discuss the impact of UCLA and USC joining the Big Ten, how conference realignment impacts college basketball, next season’s Big Ten basketball race and more.
Banner #6 – Hoosier Roundup
The biggest news in the world of Indiana sports this week was the passing of legendary diving coach Hobie Billingsley. ?
Just try to comprehend the greatness described by the sentence: “Billingsley coached at Indiana from 1959-89, winning six NCAA and 23 Big Ten team championships in that span. He coached individuals that combined for 115 national titles, 22 Big Ten Championships and six Olympic medalists.”
Here is an old SI article from 1966 that describes Billingsley’s revolutionary impact on diving: “A heretic in an arty sport.”
• The Big Ten/ACC Challenge matchups for women’s basketball were announced and Indiana will host North Carolina on Dec. 1.
• IU Athletics is transitioning to cashless payments for all ticketing, concessions and merchandise purchases.
• Baseball’s Carter Mathison earned his fourth freshman All-America honor.
• Women’s soccer elevated Emily Basten to assistant coach and recruiting coordinator.
• Softball’s Grayson Radcliffe was selected as an institutional nominee for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
• Thomas Allen and Ali Patberg were tabbed by the Big Ten Conference as Indiana’s honorees for the Outstanding Sportsmanship Award for the 2021-22 academic year.
• The Indiana football quartet of Peter Schulz, Ricky Tamis, Trey Walker and Luke Wiginton have all earned Distinguished Scholar accolades from the Big Ten office, as the year-end list was announced by the conference office.
Thanks for your continued support for The Assembly Call and Inside the Hall. We’ll be back next weekend with a new roundup.
Now go enjoy yourself a 6-banner Sunday.
Alex Bozich
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