2024-25 Indiana non-conference opponent preview: Winthrop

  • 08/05/2024 7:36 am in

Indiana’s 2024-25 non-conference schedule was finalized on July 9 and Inside the Hall will have a team-by-team look at each opponent. Today: Winthrop.

Indiana will close non-conference play on Saturday, December 28, when it hosts Winthrop at Assembly Hall.

The Eagles finished last season 17-15 overall and 8-8 in the Big South. Led by Mark Prosser, the son of the late Skip Prosser, Winthrop concluded the 2023-24 season ranked No. 176 in the KenPom ratings and No. 163 in Bart Torvik’s ratings.

In Torvik’s preseason ratings for next season, the Eagles are 174th and are projected to have the nation’s 145th-best offense and 214th-best defense.

The meeting between the Hoosiers and Eagles will be the first ever between the two programs. Winthrop has made 11 NCAA tournament appearances since 1999.

Winthrop should be able to improve upon last season’s record as it returns four starters and its top four scorers from the team that fell in the opening round of the Big South tournament last season.

The starting backcourt of Kasen Harrison and Nick Johnson gives Prosser no shortage of experience as he looks to move the Eagles up the conference standings.

Harrison, a 6-foot-1 guard, enters his third season for the Eagles after beginning his career at Lamar. Harrison averaged 11.3 points, 3.8 assists, three rebounds and 1.2 steals in 31.5 minutes last season. He started 29 times.

Johnson is back for his extra season of eligibility after transferring in from New Hampshire before last season. The 6-foot-4 graduate student averaged 10.4 points, 3.5 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.4 steals in 27.8 minutes per game last season. Johnson shot 35.4 percent on 3s but didn’t take a high volume of triples.

The program’s top two scorers from last season return and will start at the three and the four. Kelton Talford, a 6-foot-7 forward, averaged 14.1 points and 5.7 rebounds and returns for his fifth and final season of eligibility. Talford shot 62.4 percent from the field and averaged 27.1 minutes per game.

Joining Talford in the frontcourt is 6-foot-7 is K.J. Doucet, who began his career at Division II Fort Valley State before transferring to Winthrop before last season. Doucet averaged 12.4 points and 4.3 rebounds in his first season at the D1 level. Doucet shot 51-for-144 on 3s, good for 35.4 percent.

The other key returnee for the Eagles is Isaiah Wilson, who started the first six games of the 2022-23 season before suffering a season-ending injury that also forced him to miss the 2023-24 season. The 6-foot-1 guard should play backup minutes after averaging 5.6 points in 22.6 minutes over six games two seasons ago.

Logan Duncomb, a familiar face to Indiana fans, should get an opportunity to compete for minutes at the five. The 6-foot-10 Duncomb spent two seasons at Indiana before transferring to Xavier before the 2023-24 season. However, Duncomb announced last fall that he was stepping away from basketball for health reasons. In April, Duncomb announced his transfer to Winthrop.

William & Mary transfer Tai Hamilton will join Duncomb in the frontcourt rotation. The 6-foot-10 big man averaged 1.5 points and 3.1 rebounds in 12.2 minutes last season.

A trio of transfers will likely fill out the rest of the guard and wing rotation. The Eagles added Bryce Baker (Old Dominion), Ryan Jolly (Division III Piedmont) and Tommy Kamarad (Division II Arkansas Tech).

Baker is a 6-foot-5 guard who averaged five points in nearly 20 minutes last season at Old Dominion. The 6-foot-3 Jolly averaged 21.1 points last season at the Division III level, while Kamarad, a 6-foot-5 guard, averaged 12.2 points at the Division II level.

Looking at Torvik’s preseason projections, Winthrop is projected to be the third-best team in the Big South behind High Point and UNC Asheville. This would be a step up from last season when the Eagles finished in a three-way tie for fourth in the league standings.

Winthrop was an excellent 3-point shooting team last season and was heavily reliant on its perimeter shooting, which is something Indiana has struggled to defend in the past. Winthrop shot 37.9 percent last season on 3s and scored 36.1 percent of its points from the perimeter, the 42nd-highest mark in the country. While this should be a matchup Indiana wins comfortably, it will be the first game in a week for the Hoosiers following the holiday break and the final tuneup before Big Ten play resumes in the new year.

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