Welcome to The Hoosier Insider, our weekly rundown of IU basketball and football news, notes and recruiting. Let's get to it:
Jordan Wells / Basketball Beat & Recruiting News
A bit of a slower few days in hoops recruiting after all the action in July and list cuts over the last couple of weeks, but we’ve still got some updates here.
One of the first things to note is our 2017 hot board is refreshed with accolades, stats, updated recruiting notes and brand new summer videos all in one convenient place for you. This is also - after popular demand - ordered by most likely to commit to Indiana from top to bottom, based on information I’ve gathered.
You can find that link here - LINK. It’s also permanently on the home page under the “More” section.
Keep in mind this order will probably change every month when I update the board. Recruiting is a fluid thing, and it’s one of the reasons I don’t like making any grand proclamations about landing a recruit - so don’t get too attached to any names, because that order will change all the time. But we'll keep that updated based on the information we have available.
Here are a couple other updates.
Stu Jackson / Basketball Beat & Recruiting News
2018 four-star point guard Ayo Dosunmu from Chicago Morgan Park was watched by the Indiana staff during the final July eval period in Las Vegas but hasn't been in contact with the coaching staff since. So it appears that Indiana's interest in the No. 20 junior in the Rivals150 has cooled off for now. He took a visit to Xavier recently and got an offer after his visit.
I didn't write the visit recap until after last week's insider had been posted, but 2018 four-star guard Musa Jallow took an unofficial visit to IU last week. It might've been the shortest distance traveled for an unofficial visit at 2.7 miles. Jallow told me he plans to visit Stanford at the end of September.
Our 2018 recruiting board has been updated with stats and accolades for Tyler Herro, Keldon Johnson and Louis King. Right now it's difficult to shake out the mutual interest because IU is still very much invested in shaping out its 2017 class at the moment, but it gives you a pretty good idea of who's on Indiana's radar.
The board will be fluid and updated accordingly. You can find it under the "More" tab at the top of the homepage of the website.
In basketball team news, former IU standouts Yogi Ferrell and Troy Williams' NBA deals were officially announced this week. Ferrell signed with the Brooklyn Nets and will be with the team through training camp, as will Williams with the Memphis Grizzlies.
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Sam Beishuizen / Football Beat & Recruiting News
The excitement of opening up a new fall camp is still hanging around in the world of Indiana football, though that might begin to wear off soon.
At a certain point, fall camp begins to get old for both the players, fans and media. With the first game against FIU still just under three weeks away, I think we're about to hit that point.
Anyway, the current state of Indiana football appears to be "wait and see." By that, I mean the position battles are starting to play out, the defense is starting to find its stride but we're not really sure what any of that means yet. IU head coach Kevin Wilson and his staff don't give too much away about anything, leaving quite a few questions in regards to health, playing time and those types of things left unanswered.
One thing we do know is that a starting quarterback could be named before too long. Wilson said on BTN Live on Monday that he'd like to get a starter figured out within the next week or so. That means we could have a starter by the end of NEXT week, so by the time Hoosier Insider rolls out on August 19.
But just because IU names a starter doesn't mean we'll hear about it. Heck, they could already have named one and are just hiding it from us. There's no real reason to let anyone know until the last possible moment. If the team can internalize everything, name a starter and not let it get out until week one when they see the field, that's a major step ahead of Florida International and even Ball State, who won't have had time to prepare for one guy in particular.
Will that happen? Probably not. I think Wilson will just come out and name a guy.
If you put a gun to my head and ask me to name someone, I'd say it's Richard Lagow right now simply as a guess. Though I still like Zander Diamont. I think Wilson means it when he says they'll play multiple guys. I can picture Diamont being the change-up guy and playing a few series a games if Lagow is the starter. Equally, I can see Lagow being the change-up guy for Diamont. I still think that can swing either way.
The other interesting battle is for that husky spot. Marcelino Ballhas had his name tossed around a bit lately. But I still think that spot will be Jayme Thompson's if he's healthy. Zeke Walker, more linebacker than defensive back, is also someone who should get quite a bit of playing time there.
The more I talk to Tom Allen, the more I'm impressed by him. He's embraced that this team hasn't been that good defensively the last few years and doesn't stop short of reminding his players about it. He wants that to motivate them.
I warn that it's not like Brian Knorr didn't do the same thing. We wrote about, talked about and projected similar culture changes when he was around. I bet if you took a few older stories that were written about Knorr, replaced his name with Allen's and replaced 3-4 defense with 4-3 and bandit with husky, you'd get a pretty serviceable story that makes sense. That's just part of the hype surrounding a new coach.
But like I said, I still like Allen and the talent he has right now. I think this defense was going to take a few steps forward regardless of who was in charge this season, assuming the defensive line plays alright. But I think Allen is primed to do a pretty good job of it, and there's no doubt he's been scoring on the recruiting trail.
Speaking of recruiting, last week wasn't as exciting as the previous one in terms of commitments, but it was still pretty busy.
Indiana hosted more than a dozen players on campus last weekend for practice. We've got a list of who was in town in an older thread that I'm linking here.
On his visit, 2018 quarterback Quincy Patterson was offered by Indiana. The dual-threat quarterback from Chicago worked out with Coach Wilson a few weeks ago at a camp and clearly impressed him. You can read more about him here.
I've talked about his quite a bit already, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Indiana not take a quarterback in this class and focus on guys like Patterson in the next one. Unless the Hoosiers flip someone or surprise is, they'll prioritize a quarterback in 2018 and basically set up a must-get situation. I'd rather see this than use up a scholarship on a guy that doesn't fit, but some people say take a quarterback in every class just in case.
Indiana has five scholarship quarterbacks right now and won't graduate anyone. Nobody is going to head to the NFL, so that makes five coming back next year. Assuming nobody gets hurt, that number works. They could probably add a walk-on when the roster expands in a few weeks, too. It's a thin line, but IU is on the right side of it for now.
I had a good time talking to 2019 defensive end George Karlaftis this week. He has an interesting story because he didn't play football until two years ago despite a rich family history in the game. He moved from Greece to the U.S. when his father died a couple of years ago. He's got a ton of raw talent and an Indiana offer. He was one of the best freshman athletes in the state last season and will likely follow that up again this year. He's someone to watch that will obviously not be deciding for a couple years.
I also like that Indiana jumped in on 2019 offensive tackle Justin Britt as early as they did. More on him here.
I still think Indiana will add another defensive lineman in this class whether it is a guy like Josh Maize, who I wrote about this week, Bobby Roundtree, or Olalere Oladipo. One of those guys might end up at Indiana considering IU is still in the mix for all three.
The other name I like right now is Ahman Ross, a three-star DB out of Jacksonville. Ross visited Indiana a few weeks back and talked about how he was excited to be a priority guy for IU. He lists Kentucky, Louisville and West Virginia along with IU in his final four.
Other than that, it's a lot of "wait and see" stuff. With Ryan Smith now joining the 2017 class because of injury, that makes 14 scholarships heading to the 2017 group right now. We're heading toward seeing somewhere between 18-22 kids joining the 2017 class on National Signing Day. I'd estimate, and this is only guessing based on previous years, that about three players don't commit until just before Signing Day. That brings us to 17 scholarships. So I'm guessing we'll hear 2-5 more kids commit at some point in the next three months.
And for that, we wait.
Jordan Wells / Basketball Beat & Recruiting News
A bit of a slower few days in hoops recruiting after all the action in July and list cuts over the last couple of weeks, but we’ve still got some updates here.
One of the first things to note is our 2017 hot board is refreshed with accolades, stats, updated recruiting notes and brand new summer videos all in one convenient place for you. This is also - after popular demand - ordered by most likely to commit to Indiana from top to bottom, based on information I’ve gathered.
You can find that link here - LINK. It’s also permanently on the home page under the “More” section.
Keep in mind this order will probably change every month when I update the board. Recruiting is a fluid thing, and it’s one of the reasons I don’t like making any grand proclamations about landing a recruit - so don’t get too attached to any names, because that order will change all the time. But we'll keep that updated based on the information we have available.
Here are a couple other updates.
- Kris Wilkes - Let’s try to keep this behind the paywall, but I can confirm that (as of this time anyway,) his previously reported UNC visit isn’t happening. UCLA is now the only one scheduled. Look for Wilkes to release his top five likely on Sunday, with IU among others making the cut.
- Justin Smith - According to his dad on Thursday night, everything remains on-schedule with his planned visit list. That includes unofficials to Michigan (Aug. 14) and Xavier (Sept. 3), followed by officials to Indiana (Sept. 10), Villanova (Sept. 17) and Stanford (Sept. 30). However, our Michigan site says they don’t believe he makes the Michigan visit, so that could take them out. His dad said they’ve been on-campus at IU twice, so, this being a third visit (and an official) is certainly noteworthy from my perspective. I like this kid’s game a lot, and I think he’d be a nice pickup for Indiana should that go their way.
- Paul Scruggs - I don’t know what to think here. All indications were Xavier had a lead going into last weekend’s official visit. All indications were the trip went well. And sometimes actions speak louder than words, and Scruggs - who follows a ridiculously low number of people on Twitter - started following all the coaches and players following the visit (yes, you almost never want to pay attention to anything on social media, but this seemed like an exception.) But here we are, still no commitment to Xavier, and his official visit to Michigan State is canceled for now. It’s been previously reported his visits to Illinois/UConn were coming in late August/early September. If we get to the Illinois/UConn visits, you start feeling better about IU. I know there’s been rumors that Xavier doesn’t lead as much as people thought, or whatever was said, but I think that’s just people speculating after he didn’t pop right away following his Xavier visit and it snowballs. His camp could circle back for an official trip to IU at the end of it all, and if they do, then you start feeling a lot better about IU.
Stu Jackson / Basketball Beat & Recruiting News
2018 four-star point guard Ayo Dosunmu from Chicago Morgan Park was watched by the Indiana staff during the final July eval period in Las Vegas but hasn't been in contact with the coaching staff since. So it appears that Indiana's interest in the No. 20 junior in the Rivals150 has cooled off for now. He took a visit to Xavier recently and got an offer after his visit.
I didn't write the visit recap until after last week's insider had been posted, but 2018 four-star guard Musa Jallow took an unofficial visit to IU last week. It might've been the shortest distance traveled for an unofficial visit at 2.7 miles. Jallow told me he plans to visit Stanford at the end of September.
Our 2018 recruiting board has been updated with stats and accolades for Tyler Herro, Keldon Johnson and Louis King. Right now it's difficult to shake out the mutual interest because IU is still very much invested in shaping out its 2017 class at the moment, but it gives you a pretty good idea of who's on Indiana's radar.
The board will be fluid and updated accordingly. You can find it under the "More" tab at the top of the homepage of the website.
In basketball team news, former IU standouts Yogi Ferrell and Troy Williams' NBA deals were officially announced this week. Ferrell signed with the Brooklyn Nets and will be with the team through training camp, as will Williams with the Memphis Grizzlies.
-------------------------------
Sam Beishuizen / Football Beat & Recruiting News
The excitement of opening up a new fall camp is still hanging around in the world of Indiana football, though that might begin to wear off soon.
At a certain point, fall camp begins to get old for both the players, fans and media. With the first game against FIU still just under three weeks away, I think we're about to hit that point.
Anyway, the current state of Indiana football appears to be "wait and see." By that, I mean the position battles are starting to play out, the defense is starting to find its stride but we're not really sure what any of that means yet. IU head coach Kevin Wilson and his staff don't give too much away about anything, leaving quite a few questions in regards to health, playing time and those types of things left unanswered.
One thing we do know is that a starting quarterback could be named before too long. Wilson said on BTN Live on Monday that he'd like to get a starter figured out within the next week or so. That means we could have a starter by the end of NEXT week, so by the time Hoosier Insider rolls out on August 19.
But just because IU names a starter doesn't mean we'll hear about it. Heck, they could already have named one and are just hiding it from us. There's no real reason to let anyone know until the last possible moment. If the team can internalize everything, name a starter and not let it get out until week one when they see the field, that's a major step ahead of Florida International and even Ball State, who won't have had time to prepare for one guy in particular.
Will that happen? Probably not. I think Wilson will just come out and name a guy.
If you put a gun to my head and ask me to name someone, I'd say it's Richard Lagow right now simply as a guess. Though I still like Zander Diamont. I think Wilson means it when he says they'll play multiple guys. I can picture Diamont being the change-up guy and playing a few series a games if Lagow is the starter. Equally, I can see Lagow being the change-up guy for Diamont. I still think that can swing either way.
The other interesting battle is for that husky spot. Marcelino Ballhas had his name tossed around a bit lately. But I still think that spot will be Jayme Thompson's if he's healthy. Zeke Walker, more linebacker than defensive back, is also someone who should get quite a bit of playing time there.
The more I talk to Tom Allen, the more I'm impressed by him. He's embraced that this team hasn't been that good defensively the last few years and doesn't stop short of reminding his players about it. He wants that to motivate them.
I warn that it's not like Brian Knorr didn't do the same thing. We wrote about, talked about and projected similar culture changes when he was around. I bet if you took a few older stories that were written about Knorr, replaced his name with Allen's and replaced 3-4 defense with 4-3 and bandit with husky, you'd get a pretty serviceable story that makes sense. That's just part of the hype surrounding a new coach.
But like I said, I still like Allen and the talent he has right now. I think this defense was going to take a few steps forward regardless of who was in charge this season, assuming the defensive line plays alright. But I think Allen is primed to do a pretty good job of it, and there's no doubt he's been scoring on the recruiting trail.
Speaking of recruiting, last week wasn't as exciting as the previous one in terms of commitments, but it was still pretty busy.
Indiana hosted more than a dozen players on campus last weekend for practice. We've got a list of who was in town in an older thread that I'm linking here.
On his visit, 2018 quarterback Quincy Patterson was offered by Indiana. The dual-threat quarterback from Chicago worked out with Coach Wilson a few weeks ago at a camp and clearly impressed him. You can read more about him here.
I've talked about his quite a bit already, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Indiana not take a quarterback in this class and focus on guys like Patterson in the next one. Unless the Hoosiers flip someone or surprise is, they'll prioritize a quarterback in 2018 and basically set up a must-get situation. I'd rather see this than use up a scholarship on a guy that doesn't fit, but some people say take a quarterback in every class just in case.
Indiana has five scholarship quarterbacks right now and won't graduate anyone. Nobody is going to head to the NFL, so that makes five coming back next year. Assuming nobody gets hurt, that number works. They could probably add a walk-on when the roster expands in a few weeks, too. It's a thin line, but IU is on the right side of it for now.
I had a good time talking to 2019 defensive end George Karlaftis this week. He has an interesting story because he didn't play football until two years ago despite a rich family history in the game. He moved from Greece to the U.S. when his father died a couple of years ago. He's got a ton of raw talent and an Indiana offer. He was one of the best freshman athletes in the state last season and will likely follow that up again this year. He's someone to watch that will obviously not be deciding for a couple years.
I also like that Indiana jumped in on 2019 offensive tackle Justin Britt as early as they did. More on him here.
I still think Indiana will add another defensive lineman in this class whether it is a guy like Josh Maize, who I wrote about this week, Bobby Roundtree, or Olalere Oladipo. One of those guys might end up at Indiana considering IU is still in the mix for all three.
The other name I like right now is Ahman Ross, a three-star DB out of Jacksonville. Ross visited Indiana a few weeks back and talked about how he was excited to be a priority guy for IU. He lists Kentucky, Louisville and West Virginia along with IU in his final four.
Other than that, it's a lot of "wait and see" stuff. With Ryan Smith now joining the 2017 class because of injury, that makes 14 scholarships heading to the 2017 group right now. We're heading toward seeing somewhere between 18-22 kids joining the 2017 class on National Signing Day. I'd estimate, and this is only guessing based on previous years, that about three players don't commit until just before Signing Day. That brings us to 17 scholarships. So I'm guessing we'll hear 2-5 more kids commit at some point in the next three months.
And for that, we wait.
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