2024-25 IU basketball player profile: Gabe Cupps

  • Oct 4, 2024 8:39 am in

With the start of college basketball season approaching, we’ve moved from our look at other Big Ten programs to our player-by-player previews of the 2024-25 Indiana roster.

Today, our player profiles continue with sophomore Gabe Cupps.

Previously: Bryson Tucker, Jakai Newton, Myles Rice, Mackenzie Mgbako

Gabe Cupps was thrust into a larger role than expected as a freshman at Indiana.

The No. 94 player in the 2023 class – according to the 247Sports Composite – Cupps was expected to be Indiana’s backup point guard.

However, the 2022 Mr. Basketball in Ohio played major minutes due to injuries to Xavier Johnson. Johnson, IU’s fifth-year point guard, was in and out of the lineup for most of the season.

Rather than easing his way into the rotation, Cupps played in all 33 of IU’s games as a freshman and made 22 starts. He was one of five freshmen in the Big Ten to start 20 games. His production, however, was much lower than you’d expect for a player logging that many minutes.

The 6-foot-2 guard from Centerville, Ohio, averaged 2.6 points, 1.8 rebounds, 1.2 assists and .7 steals. He shot 35.9 percent on 3s (39 attempts), 36.7 percent on 2s (49 attempts) and 61.5 percent from the foul line (13 attempts).

Cupps scored in double figures once as a freshman, in a 104-76 blowout loss to Auburn. In three of IU’s final four games last season, he went scoreless despite logging an average of 22 minutes in those contests.

Rather than playing with the aggressiveness he displayed in high school, Cupps was timid offensively. He rarely looked to create a shot for himself. Defenses knew Cupps wouldn’t be an offensive threat, often making it seem like the Hoosiers were playing 4-on-5.

“I feel like I was just a little bit passive, not as aggressive as I should be,” Cupps said at media day last month. “Coach Woodson made it very clear that he wants me to be aggressive. Even last season, he was telling me to be aggressive but I kind of felt like I was in a role on the team already. I think I improved on that this summer and hope to carry it into the season, too.”

Famous for arriving early to the gym and staying late, Cupps used the offseason to refine his shot.

While the change might not be easy to spot when the season begins, the Ohio native moved his left hand more on the side of the ball. He said the move came after conversations with the assistant coaches, Woodson and his father, Brook Cupps.

The slight tweak of his shot mechanics required countless hours to become comfortable with the change.

“I changed my form on my jump shot a little bit, just to make it more consistent,” he explained. “That’s probably the biggest thing. That requires thousands, tens of thousands of reps.”

He also emphasized “playing and communicating with confidence” over the summer. With Indiana’s guard rotation changes, Cupps should have a more clearly defined role as a sophomore. Myles Rice will be the team’s starting point guard and the Hoosiers also have Trey Galloway and Kanaan Carlyle, who are both capable of playing the position.

Cupps is hungry to show he’s a far more capable contributor in year two, regardless of how often he plays.

“I feel like I’ve just been like chomping at the bit ever since last season,” he said. “That’ll get a competitor going, a season that you feel like you didn’t do very well personally, you didn’t do very well as a team, like that’ll get somebody going who really cares about the game, cares about what they’re doing.”

Bottom line: Cupps is a leader for Indiana basketball on and off the floor. The minutes he logged last season will be valuable for his long-term development. His minutes per game will go down as a sophomore, but not many teams have a backup point guard who averaged more than 20 minutes and made more than 20 starts. While his numbers may never stand out on a stat sheet, Cupps is a competitor who is invested in team success above all else.

Quotable: “I think just coming in, playing a lot of minutes and not playing to what I know I can play, playing up to that potential, I think that has motivated me throughout the summer to just keep getting better. I think just getting those minutes under my belt has been really important for me, too. Just to feel more comfortable around the coaching staff, feel more comfortable around my teammates, it’s going to do nothing but help me.”

Media day interview with Cupps:

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