The Inside the Hall Mailbag: Projected starting lineup, Big Ten scheduling and more

  • Jul 30, 2024 12:20 pm in

The Inside the Hall Mailbag is a collection of questions sent to us via X (@insidethehall), via email, submitted via our community and our Facebook page. Submit your questions and we’ll answer as many as we can.

Andrew Miller via Facebook writes: Projected starters and which bench guys get consistently heavy minutes?

Four projected starters — Myles Rice, Mackenzie Mgbako, Malik Reneau, and Oumar Ballo — feel like no-brainers. It would be a shock if those four weren’t in the Hoosiers’ starting lineup.

Beyond that, the final spot would appear to be between Trey Galloway and Kanaan Carlyle. Galloway continues to recover from offseason surgery but is expected to be ready for the start of the season. Carlyle had an up-and-down freshman season at Stanford, but Indiana is hopeful he can break out as a sophomore in Bloomington.

As for the bench guys who will get consistent minutes, start with whoever doesn’t start between Galloway and Carlyle. Beyond that, Illinois transfer Luke Goode will be in the rotation. Freshman Bryson Tucker is likely too talented to keep off the floor. Gabe Cupps could be in the line for some backup guard minutes, as could Langdon Hatton at the five. As for consistent heavy minutes, it won’t be surprising to see Mike Woodson go nine or ten deep regularly early in the season before pairing down the rotation later in the season.

HoosierFan 76 via the Inside the Hall Community writes: If this season isn’t a huge success and IU ultimately moves on, is the NIL commitment shown in assembling this roster a signal of renewed commitment to greater things as a program, and finally doing what it takes to land a no-doubt, home-run hire for a coach? Sorry if this seems negative, I’m just sick and tired of losing – more sick and tired of it than Bob Knight was sick and tired of sitting around with an 18-10 record and losing to Purdue.

Is a no-doubt, home-run hire attainable for Indiana? For that matter, is it attainable for any school in this new landscape of college basketball? After what we witnessed during the coaching carousel this past spring, that feels like a legitimate question.

Kentucky, arguably the best job in the sport, just hired an alum in Mark Pope, who has never won an NCAA tournament game. Louisville, another top-tier job, hired Pat Kelsey. Like Pope, he has also never won an NCAA tournament game.

That’s not to say that Pope or Kelsey are bad hires — they could end up as home runs — but they don’t fall into that category on paper right now.

As for the NIL commitment and how it correlates to a signal of renewed commitment to greater things as a program, Indiana continues to put a lot of resources towards its basketball program. That should continue to be the case in the future, but as the last 20+ years have shown, there is no guarantee of success just because money is poured into the program.

Ogun Spirit via Facebook writes: Does Mike Woodson have a system that can maximize this talent on this roster?

At least through his first three seasons, Woodson’s system has been a steady diet of post-play and playing inside out. That likely isn’t changing with a roster headlined by Ballo and Reneau in the post.

What should be different this season is that Indiana has better guards and perimeter players than it did last season.

Rice is a legitimate All-Big Ten candidate who is a tremendous upgrade at the point guard position. Galloway should be able to play a more complementary role than he did a season ago. Carlyle should be able to provide a scoring punch that was lacking a season ago in the backcourt. Mgbako came on as a 3-point shooter in Big Ten play last season. Goode is an adult who is experienced from his time at Illinois. He can also make shots.

One sign of great coaching is adapting a style of play to fit the personnel on the roster. Indiana didn’t do that well last season, in large part because its talent deficiency at key positions made it too one-dimensional. With more overall talent and roster balance, that should be different next season.

Devout Hoosier via the Inside the Hall Community writes: What are your thoughts on the Big Ten schedule where most conference teams play each other once?

The regular season title in the Big Ten continues to lose meaning with addition of more teams. The schedule was already unbalanced with 14 teams playing a 20-game schedule. With 18 teams playing a 20-game schedule, it’s even worse.

The product would be better with more conference games – and that’s what fans would like to see rather than guarantee games against inferior opponents – but there’s no rush to make that happen.

To answer your question, the Big Ten has added quality programs to the league that should be fun to watch over the long haul. But the schedule now — each team only has three double plays — is severely unbalanced and the regular season title is less relevant than ever.

Assembly Call via X (formerly Twitter) writes: I think it’s fair to say that IU should field a Tournament-level team with a top 7 of Rice/Carlyle/Galloway/Mgbako/Reneau/Ballo/Goode. Beyond those 7, who (if anyone) do you think is the biggest X-factor whose development could most raise the team’s ceiling?

Tucker is the easy answer. Before the G-League Ignite folded, he was destined to play there to get to the NBA quickly.

He was a McDonald’s All-American, a consensus five-star prospect and just turned 18 years old this month. If he buys into the role he’s asked to play – and all accounts say he’s a great kid who wants to win – he’s the clear answer as the guy who can raise the team’s ceiling.

Few teams have the luxury of having that type of talent come off the bench. If Tucker develops steadily over the course of the season, the Hoosiers should benefit greatly when the games matter most during the home stretch.

Cincy Hoosier via the Inside the Hall Community writes: Have you heard anything about how the games against the former Pac-12 opponents will be scheduled? Surely the Oregon and Washington road games (and future USC/UCLA road trips) will be packaged together. But I am wondering if we should be anticipating any weekday games tipping at potentially 10 p.m. ET or later this year and moving forward.

While the Big Ten has yet to make any schedule announcements for next season, the belief is that the games will be packaged together. That would mean IU would make one trip west to play Oregon and Washington rather than separate trips. When the old Pac-12 teams come east, the expectation is that they will play multiple games rather than just one to cut down on travel.

We’ll have to wait until the schedule is finalized in the fall to find out about tip times. Hopefully, there won’t be many, if any, tip times scheduled for past 9 or 9:30 p.m. ET. And if there are, hopefully, those are the exception rather than the rule.

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