It's hard to overstate how different the college basketball landscape is from just five years ago.
The traditional approach was to recruit stars and role players throughout the high school ranks, making occasional moves here and there to fill in the gaps. Some schools still do this, and students may be transferred from place to place as needed.
But instead of using the transfer portal to fill out the roster, there is a path to growth through the transfer portal. Some coaches are already at it, with Mike Woodson adding his name to the mix with the Statement 2024 portal class.
Since this is all very new, we don't have a long list of examples of teams built through the portal. Last year's Kansas, NC State, Villanova, Illinois, Alabama, and Arkansas teams come to mind.
However, “constructed” is not always the right word. Many teams simply add to existing talent, combining portal additions with players they recruit and develop over time, and this is what Indiana is doing. Please note that the degree will be greater since there is only one high school student contracted.
Results were mixed. In the end, Arkansas was disappointing enough that it somehow led to a coaching change. In March, Illinois found itself in its deepest crisis in more than a decade. The University of Alabama advanced to the Final Four.
I can't say that adding this many players to the portal is good or bad. Most teams that add six or more transfers do so because a new coach has arrived. Indiana will likely add at most five cases, and it won't result in a complete overhaul like the ones done at Penn State and St. John's University.
In modern college basketball, especially at the upper major level, a well-known player is preferable to an incoming freshman unless he is a top-10 player who can play immediately.
Indiana tried to recruit a talented freshman. That didn't work.
I cannot speak to Mike Woodson and his staff's plans for the past calendar year. It was clear they were aiming for the moon with the 2024 class, but it seemingly ended in disaster when longtime target Liam McNeely retired.
However, this approach included a cushion through the transfer portal. If that fails, the Hoosiers could turn their attention to experienced transfers to restock the roster, which they did.
This is not to say that staff will ignore future high school ranks. Indiana has made talented 2025 in-state graduates like Trent Sisley, Jalen Haralson and Braylon Mullins a top priority. It's no mean feat for the Hoosiers to bring their entire staff to the recruiting tour they conducted last month.
But the portal is always there. Indiana is the kind of program that could use it to fill holes with luxury or reload a roster that found itself. Indiana University has done a good job of reloading this offseason, and Woodson seems to be thriving here.
Woodson comes from the NBA level, where free agent negotiations are quick and decisions are made quickly. Teams keep an eye on available talent and secure players as soon as they become available.
He has done this and has acquired late spring recruits every offseason in Bloomington thus far. Two of them, Malik Renaud and Mackenzie Mbako, will play big roles in next year's team.
The program also didn't cast a particularly wide net on Portal, and it wasn't focused on attracting men to campus. The four additional individuals typically went into action the next day, but the visit to Indiana was their only one.
It might be strange for the fan base to have a team with so many new faces every year, but that's the way the sport is now. Indiana can gain an advantage through the portal and has done so thus far.
With Portal, Woodson comes into his own. He has shown results every year and while it can be nerve-wracking for the fan base to wait for slow results, at some point you have to trust that he has been there before and has done a good job. be.