Aiden Sherrell eager for expanded role ahead of IU basketball’s first exhibition
- Alex Bozich
- 46m ago
IU basketball fans are less than a week away from their first opportunity to watch the 2026-27 team, which was rebuilt via the transfer portal this spring.
Before departing for the 2026 FISU America Games in Lima, Peru, the Hoosiers, representing the United States, will play an exhibition on Wednesday, July 15, against Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
The new look roster includes seven transfer portal additions, four freshmen and one returnee, Trent Sisley.
Among the newcomers, one of the pieces with the most experience winning and producing at a high level is junior forward Aiden Sherrell.
Considered one of the top frontcourt players available in the portal last spring, the 6-foot-11, 255-pound Sherrell arrives from an Alabama program that won 53 games over the last two seasons and advanced to the Elite Eight in the 2025 NCAA tournament.
A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sherrell took a significant step forward last season as a sophomore for the Crimson Tide.
After averaging 3.4 points and 2.8 rebounds per game as a freshman, the 2024 McDonald’s All-American started all 34 games he appeared in last season. Sherrell averaged 11.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.2 blocked shots and 1.1 assists in 23.9 minutes per game.
Even more will be expected from him as a junior at Indiana, where he will help anchor the frontcourt for the Hoosiers along with SMU transfer Samet Yigitoglu.
While his interior scoring, rebounding and shot blocking stand out, Sherrell isn’t strictly a back-to-the-basket big man.
“I can do pretty much everything,” he said on Tuesday following IU’s practice at Cook Hall. “I’m very versatile. I can play inside, play outside. I can guard multiple positions. I’m just a guy who goes out there and does whatever it takes to win.”
Sherrell has connected on 41 3-pointers over his first two seasons and has been shooting well from the perimeter and the midrange in the program’s recent practices.
Indiana plans to start Sherrell alongside the 7-foot-2 Yigitoglu, giving the program far more size than it had last season.
“I think that definitely helps me showcase my game a lot more and just show what I have,” Sherrell said of the opportunity to play minutes at the four.
The Hoosiers also made an important signing at point guard with Notre Dame transfer Markus Burton.
Burton’s ability to make reads out of ball-screen situations should greatly benefit Sherrell, who can pop out to the perimeter for open looks and also roll to the rim as a lob threat.
“It’s great playing with Markus,” Sherrell said. When me and him are clicking, it’s super hard to stop. Markus is a great teammate. He does so much.
“I feel like both of us are doing an important job on building chemistry with each other. He’s a great teammate, so he’s going to make sure we have great chemistry.”
Sherrell, who said IU’s recruiting pitch focused on giving him a role where he could have “a lot more impact on the game,” noted that the pitch from second-year coach Darian DeVries was all basketball-focused.
“He’s super, super serious. Really basketball oriented,” Sherrell explained. “When he talked to me about coming here, it was all basketball. It was all focused on basketball. That’s something that I appreciated. He’s trying to make me better on the court and as a young man.”
Sherrell, who committed to Indiana on Wednesday, April 15, said many schools reached out after he entered the transfer portal, but Indiana was where he felt most comfortable continuing his career.
“Ultimately, I came to this decision because I feel like this is a great place for me,” he said. “I was looking for a spot that was going to help me be the best player I could be on and off the court. I was looking for a spot that was going to push me to play outside of my comfort zone and just continue to build me as a player and help me reach my goals at the end of the day.”
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)
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