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Indiana Hoosiers head coach Darian Devries reacts in the first half of the NCAA game at Value City Arena on Saturday, March 7, 2026 in Columbus, Ohio. | Samantha Madar/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Barring a miracle, one that Indiana absolutely does not deserve, Indiana’s men’s basketball’s season came to a close Wednesday night with a loss to Northwestern in the Big Ten Tournament. It was the second loss of the season to Northwestern, where a win in either could have earned Indiana a bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Just a few years ago, before the portal and NIL, missing the Tournament in year one would not be something you’d hold against a head coach.
However, as we’ve discussed before, this was a team full of guys in their last year of eligibility. With another offseason of high roster turnover, it’s safe to surmise that the plan was to win now, then build a more stable foundation for the future later. Unfortunately, this team proved incapable of winning now.
Which brings us to the offseason. Per KenPom, the top five players with the highest usage rate for Darian DeVries are all out of eligibility. Out of the rotation players, only Trent Sisley, Nick Dorn, and Jasai Miles have eligibility left.
Being an Indiana kid who has already stuck it out through a roster and coaching change, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Sisley sticks around. As a four star recruit, he should be somebody with the potential to become an impact player as early as next season.
Beyond that, the only absolute sure things for next year’s roster are a trio of high school commits, Vaughn Karvala, Prince-Alexander Moody, and Trevor Manhertz. Just looking at their 247 Sports rankings, Karvala is the only guy ranked in the range of recruits that tend to come in and make an impact as a freshman.
While three high school players and possibly a returning sophomore in Sisley give the roster more age balance than it had last season, it’s not clear where the scoring will come from. This is where the portal will come in, but there are a few different approaches DeVries might take here. Let’s consider those:
Win Now (next year)
With a few building blocks in hand for the future, DeVries might opt for another shorter term fix that would make Indiana a safer bet for next year’s NCAA Tournament. This could mean another portal class full of older guys who are more proven commodities than younger players with higher ceilings.
To avoid a repeat of this season, DeVries would likely want to limit his focus to guys who have proven themselves at a high-major level. Between coaching changes, late high school signings, and NIL opportunities, there should be a decent pool of these kinds of guys.
The drawback to this approach would be that it puts DeVries in a position that would require him to make a substantive portal haul for the third straight offseason, something that probably isn’t sustainable in the long term. That said, if he misses the tournament in each of his first two seasons, who knows how long his term will be.
Win Later
If DeVries feels confident enough in the support he has from the administration, he may opt for making this a longer-term rebuild, loading up with multiple players who have a few years of eligibility remaining.
Having some roster continuity from year two to year three should (theoretically) put the team in a spot to take a big step forward in that third season, without fearing a drop off in year four. Year three is also when five-star 2025 guard Chase Branham gets to campus, so there is more help on the way for that crucial year three.
The feasibility of this path depends somewhat on the temperature in the room. Missing the tournament in year one with no clear plan for year two has fans on edge, but building a roster with talent at all five positions could take some heat off of DeVries, even if a younger team experiences growing pains next year.
The ideal
In a perfect world, DeVries would not have to make such a decision, and a more balanced roster this past year could have helped him avoid this position altogether. That’s not where Indiana is now, though, and last offseason should serve as an example of how hard it is to build an entire roster from scratch in one offseason, even with Indiana’s resources.
Of course I would love if he could somehow thread the needle and assemble a roster that’s capable of improving on this season without selling out our hopes at a good year three. It just doesn’t seem terribly likely given the sheer number of roster spots Indiana will have to fill.
The fact is, Indiana has found itself in a very bad spot, one that will probably force DeVries to make decisions as to what kind of team and culture he wants to build. How he chooses to proceed will likely be informed by how much money he has to play with, how much pressure he feels both internally and externally, and what he thinks he has on the roster this year that he could work with next year.
From the outside, though, there’s no telling which way this will go after a disastrous year one.
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