You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
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GAIL and Clavio joining you. It is Monday, the 19th of May.
It's a surprisingly busy time right now in IU athletics lot
going on and we're going to have not just IU athletics going on,
but we've got Pacers, we've got Indy 500.
It's just a whole lot of stuff going on in Central IN right
now. And we're going to talk IU
today. Lot of going, a lot of stuff
going on in the recruiting world.
And we've got Zac Browning from on three and the Hoosier joining
us. Zac, good to see you.
How you doing? I'm good, Galen.
I'm doing well. Summer.
Nice to be home, nice to relax a little bit.
How are you? Fine, also feeling the same,
enjoying the warmer temperatures.
I could do without the EF 2 tornadoes in town, but
everything else has been fine so far.
You know, but should be an interesting conversation.
We're going to talk recruiting. Zach's been burning it up on on
the website and on X getting information out to the peoples.
We greatly appreciate that. We want to talk about some of
that 'cause I know it's certainly of interest to many of
you. Before we do that real quick,
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All right, Zach, let's dive right in.
We were talking before the show and I was like, we could do
football, we could do basketball.
We're going to do a little bit of both.
I want to start with football because it's the sport that I
think more people are like really excited by right now.
And Indiana has definitely made some moves in this recruiting
cycle that I would argue kind of highlight a very different
recruiting, not just philosophy, but a different mix of players
that they are suddenly in line for and are starting to get
commitments from. Why don't we start with what
stuck out to you over the course of this last month or so, as
we've started to see some of these verbal commitments coming
in from pretty highly regarded football players both in state
and out of state. I think you've got to hit the
nail on the head right there. Obviously, Curse Signetti, the
success that Indiana had last season, we assumed it would
translate eventually to the recruiting side as well.
And we've kind of seen that already take shape throughout
the first offseason, the first real offseason Curse Signetti's
had at the helm of the Hoosiers. And what stands out to me,
Galen, is that the guys that he's brought in, the handful of
guys has gotten verbal commits from Indiana's 2026 class stands
at 9 guys currently. It's not just the
run-of-the-mill Indiana three star after three star after
three star. These are talented guys on
three, has a handful of these recruits ranked in the top 100
or in the top 150, the top 300, etcetera.
Indiana has a #1 ranked recruit in the state of Indiana coming
to play next year, which is not something that the Hoosiers can
say, not something that Tom Allen could really say during
his tenure and stuff like that. But I think it's the quality of
the players. We know that Cursinetti can do
more with less, but now he's going to have an opportunity to
do more with more. I think that'll be the exciting
thing. He's got not only the quantity
of players coming in in this recruiting class, but he's got
the talent as well. If you look at the recruiting
classes between Indiana and Michigan, Michigan just right
now slightly ahead of Indiana, I think they're ranked 9th in the
Big 10 per on three. Indiana ranked 10th in the
conference for 2026, but they both have the same number of
four-star recruits right now. Indiana has two and Michigan has
two, which is not something that we've been able to say in years
past. Yeah, I mean a lot there to
dissect. I mean, let's start with maybe
the most recent recruit that they picked up.
Gabe Hill, defensive lineman out of Naperville, IL, has a high
school teammate who's joining the roster this year.
And but this is a highly sought after guy.
He's a top 300 recruit in pretty much every service.
I think on three has him at 2:49 in the country.
This is not the type of recruit Indiana normally gets.
I mean, we've seen them pull four stars on very rare
occasions, but they're generally offensive players at skill
positions, which are probably the hardest guys to rate.
When you get to lineman, when you get on on either side of the
ball or, or you know, players like that, it, it means
something to land a four-star like that, Especially when
you're going up against the Wisconsin's and the the
Illinois's and the teams that Indiana really hasn't recruited
well against historically. Yeah, not just in the case of
Hill, not just Iowa, Wisconsin, LSU was involved, Texas A&M,
Notre Dame, who's an in state and even closer to Naperville up
there in Chicago. But again, going back to what
you said at the beginning of that, there is an IU recruit in
the class of 2025 that's from Naperville, Jacob Bell, a
quarterback who was originally committed.
The Ball State flipped to Indiana.
And I think what stands out is that's not the only case of
Indiana kind of developing recruiting networks.
I guess I would call that Indiana.
There's a number of instances where Indiana's reached out to a
handful of guys from the same high school as some of the guys
on the current roster. Indiana's kind of developing the
networks and Chicago, Naperville in that kind of areas, a very
important kind of place to be able to recruit, especially if
you're Indiana. You can't just recruit in state.
In Indiana, you got to go reach into Chicago, got to reach into
Ohio. We've seen Indiana do both of
those things. But what stands out to me about
Hill, and he said it himself, he just, he said they're a team
with a lot of ambition, a lot of things to prove.
So it's exciting. He said he loves Curtis Agnetti.
And I think when you're talking to any recruit, whether it's
football in the class of 2026, whether it's the class of 2027,
anybody you talk to on the recruiting trail about Indiana,
Curtis Agnetti always comes up. Yes, the relationships with the
kind of more on the site recruiters, the likes of Mike
Shanahan and like that their names get brought up.
Yes, the connection between them is important between them and
the recruit, but not just that you have to be able to recruit
as the head coach. And I think that we're seeing
kind of the pull that Kirsten, Kirsten that he has as a
recruiter. I mean, you can see the quote
right there. He's got the pull he's kind of
got, for lack of a better way to put it, he's got the aura Galen
like that. Some of these recruits like they
like to follow. He's got rizz, he's got
recruiting rizz, Zach. But it's it's interesting too,
like using going into the same well that you've gone to for
past recruits, even if they're just one cycle previous.
It's almost like it's like using influencers in your recruiting
process. You know, I mean it, it kind of
worked with Fernando Mendoza in a different way since they
already had Alberto Mendoza on the roster.
And and I'm certainly that helped to grease the wheels a
little bit to make that happen. But you know, you, you make some
interesting statements here. And I think it's worth noting,
you know, Signetti, you know, the whatever you think of the
bravado that Signetti carries himself with when he's talking
to the press about his team or when he's talking to fans.
Some people like it. Some people are like, this is a
bit much. But it really does seem to carry
well with high school football players and transfers because
he's a confident guy. He has a clear plan.
And I think sometimes we underestimate how much those two
things resonate with players and parents when often times they're
dealing with coaches that don't want to commit, you know, that
they or or don't have that, you know, for whatever you want to
say about. Like Tom Allen, who was clearly
a very passionate guy, could really communicate that passion
pretty well, but was kind of short on details and it kind of
showed up. And in the types of players he
brought in and the way that the developmental cycle work thus
far. And certainly going back to what
you saw Signetti do with the way he recruited James Madison,
there's a real clear through line that he can point to with
not just him but also his assistants about, hey, we've
said we're going to do XY and Z, and here's the proof in the past
of what we've done that can take you to that level that you want
to get to. You're exactly right.
And I think we're kind of seeing the power that a that building a
strong coaching staff around a guy like Signetti has.
I mean, these are $1,000,000 assistant coaches.
That's not something Indiana has ever been able to claim on the
football side of things. You look at Mike Shanahan,
that's $1,000,000 assistant right there.
You look at Brian Haynes, he's making more than Mike Shanahan
at this point. So these are guys that have been
paid and compensated not only because of what they can do, X's
and O's, YS in the middle of the game, in the middle of the
season, but also what they can do on a recruiting trail.
And not just identifying talent, but actually landing that
talent. And I think that's another big
important thing as well. Indiana is competing not only in
state with the likes of Purdue, with the likes of Notre Dame was
a big time school, but regionally with Ohio State.
Indiana one of the the second ranked recruit right now in
Indiana 2026 class Henry Olinger is an athlete from Columbus
right out of Ohio states backyard.
So Indiana being able to go into those places that's not
necessarily strictly the state of Indiana.
I mentioned Casmir Hicks, defensive back, the number one
rank recruit, the state of Indiana.
He's already coming to Indiana, but not just the in state guys
because it's a little bit different on the football side
and basketball side. Yes, you need to be able to
recruit in state for football, but you also have to be able to
spread out, especially if you're Indiana in the Midwest.
And we've kind of seen that. We also have seen cursing Nettie
with that kind of Pennsylvania, that Pittsburgh background.
He's reached into those regions a little bit as well.
But you got to be able to recruit not just the state of
Indiana, but the Midwest as a whole.
And we're seeing that not only with Curt Signetti, but Mike
Shanahan, Brian Haynes. I mean, you mentioned the plan
that's there's a, there's a reason Indiana strength and
conditioning coordinator was so highly sought after and why he
got a raise to stay in Bloomington because that's part
of the plan. You come here to IU, maybe
you're 6 foot two, 275 lbs. You come here, you spend a
summer here and all of a sudden you're 15 lbs of muscle heavier.
I mean, that's the kind of plan that Curse Signetti has for his
players and that's what, as you said, resonates not only with
the players but with the families as well, which is an
underrated part of the high score recruiting.
You know, the, the recruiting Indiana and the Midwest thing is
really interesting because this was not something that Allen's
staff did. They, they were very focused on
what they knew, which was Florida and a little bit of
Georgia. And and, you know, you look at
the heat map of where a lot of those recruits came from, that
was where they were coming from and they had some successes.
I mean, clearly you get a Michael Panics out of Florida.
You know, there's some other players that came out of that
that realm. It's not that it's bad.
It's just that you you, you know, there's a certain level of
competition you have to engage in if you're going to recruit in
the Midwest. And one of the things I think
people misunderstand about the state of Indiana is there's
actually a good amount of football talent in the state,
but it is historically gone elsewhere.
It is not gone to IU, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame.
You know, Alabama comes in, takes a guy and then that that
level of three stars that you can normally build off of his
developmental pieces. Well, they've been going to
Iowa, they've been going to Michigan State, they've been
going to Wisconsin. And it's interesting, you know,
when Kurt Signetti got hired, one of the things I remember us
talking about was, well, they really do need to go right at
the Midwest and see if they can make some inroads.
Now going 11-1 of the regular season and making the College
Football Playoff helps a ton, but it's also the fact they've
restocked talent wise. Like they look like a team
that's going to be here to stay. You know, they're ranked in some
poles at this point. And you know, you're not going
to win every battle, But if you can win a decent amount of the
battles in state, if you can go get, you know, not just like you
said, Casmir Hicks, but they, you know, they got Trevor Gibbs
from Crown Point, who I think was the number three player and
#4 player in the state. You know, they've got a couple
of other guys that they're kind of on the, on the threshold
perhaps of getting, they've got what, 3 or 4 guys that on threes
classified as like elite prospects in one form or
another. I mean, that stuff really does
stack up. And what they're, they're 8 or 9
commits deep into a class that's probably going to be about, you
know, 2223, I'm guessing. And you know, they've last year
they were 53rd in recruiting. And that was not really a good
representation of what Kurtz Ignaty was going to be able to
do. This is really the first time
we've seen them recruiting against the big boys with a full
year under their belt. That's all really exciting, I
think, if you're an IU fan. You're exactly right on three
currently has Indiana ranked 31st in the country, 10th in the
Big 10, the 2026 class. And you bring up the fact that
Indiana has multiple top 10 ranked recruits in the state of
Indiana in this class of 2026. That hasn't happened since 2022.
That's the last time Indiana had two top 10 ranked recruits from
the state of Indiana. They go elsewhere as you
mentioned, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, those types of
places. Indiana has three this year.
The last top 10 recruit period that Indiana got from in state
was Tyler Cherry and you know, his injury struggles are what
they are, but Indiana could walk away from this 2026 class Galen
realistically with four probably top 10 ranked recruits, not only
just in the state of just in the state of Indiana alone, which is
eye opening for Indiana because you have to be able to win that
win your state. Once you can win your state,
then you can kind of go out IP talked about with a guy like
Henry Olinger, go out to Columbus, get him Gabe Hill and
Naperville. I mean it starts with winning
your state. That's obviously the foundation
with the new can kind of branch out from there.
And I think the thing that Indiana has going for it,
they've got that foundation of this class.
There's 24 stars in it right now, 7 three stars according to
on three. The talent is still there.
The talent is still out there there.
There's still plenty of uncommitted 4 stars.
There's still plenty of top guys.
I mean, if you look recently, Indiana in the final five for
another 4 star recruit, another four-star defensive lineman and
Cameron Mccaney, he's got Indiana in his top five.
His official commitment date is set for a couple of weeks in the
future, so not yet, but that's one to keep an eye on for
Indiana. Another four-star that would put
here. I'll explain it this way.
If Indiana were to land both Hill and McKinney, I was doing
some research earlier, those would be the third and fourth
highest ranked defensive line recruits.
Ever since Indiana football and recruiting websites have started
to kind of track that stuff. You've got Dassan McCullough and
you've got Darius Latham back in 2013.
So I mean, you've already got. One of those guys got a big, big
asterisk by their name since they it was a family connection
that that, you know, I think you could say brought them here at
least as much as anything else. And, you know, obviously Darius
Latham was a was a a great addition and was a stalwart on
that line. But yeah, no, it's it is
fascinating And and I think, you know, for a lot of IU fans who
are still trying to process how to feel about last year and how
to feel about where IU football is at, this was always the class
where I was like, OK, this is going to tell us if this is real
and if this is resonating. And, you know, it's in football
recruiting, so much of it's about networking.
So much of it's about, you know, what coaches you know, as you
know what you know what, who your coaching staff knows.
You know, Taylor's talked about this a bunch on our podcast.
Like what, what camps are you going to?
Who are you talking to? Where are you in the mix?
And this is a really well respected coaching staff, as
we've seen, you mentioned, not just strength and conditioning,
nearly getting hired elsewhere, but you know, Brian Haynes was
potentially going to go get hired elsewhere.
He got a raise. It's clearly a staff that the
big boys have noticed and they're going to be a force to
be reckoned with as long as they're here.
And I think it's going to be interesting watching them
continue to try to lay this foundation down.
And as you think about like where Indiana lands, we've, you
know, on on this show, we've been saying for years, it may
not be sustainable for IU to try to go after four stars and five
stars because they've just historically done poorly with
four stars and five stars. Like for every McCullough who
played really well with came in, you'd get I mean, you go back
and look at any of the classes from the last five years and and
you know, anybody that was ranked above a 3, it's like
maybe there was a reason that they slipped through the cracks
of the upper echelon. Obviously, we'll take a wait and
see approach with this current staff and what they're doing,
But this feels different from a recruiting perspective.
It just it feels a lot more stable and it feels like there's
a specific plan and the fact they're recruiting so well on
the defensive line, an area that's historically been a
difficult spot for IU to compete against, especially with the Big
10 lines they deal with. It's just a lot of exciting
things all at once. And I think that's maybe the
biggest thing, the defensive line, the offensive line, those
two areas. Because I asked Kirstenetti
after that Notre Dame game, after Indiana season was over, I
asked him, you know, what's the biggest difference here?
2 losses of 0, Ohio State, Notre Dame?
What's the biggest difference between programs like that,
teams like that in your team right now with how it's
constructed? And he said the death was one
thing. So obviously the recruiting
class, having deeper recruiting classes helps with that.
But he also said just the sheer size in the trenches, the
defensive lineman, the offensive lineman, if you're a four or
five star defensive lineman or an offensive lineman that's a
four or five star, you are that because you're 6 foot 6, like
330 lbs. Like that's just something you
cannot teach the four stars and the five stars, they get that
ranking not only because of their production, but just
because of their sheer unteachable size.
So if Indiana is able to recruit more guys like Gabe Hill, he's a
four-star defensive lineman, He's got that unteachable size
that you just can't do anything about.
He's right now 62275 and that's before he gets on campus.
He's still got another year of high school football to not only
play, but to grow physically as well.
So when you're looking at that and you're looking at the
offense of a defensive line, that's really where you got to
get your money's worth. That's where you can get all the
three stars you want. Of course, Iowa, Wisconsin,
those types of schools have a history of turning the not as
highly touted 4 star and five star guys into those behemoths
that you see in the Big 10. But Indiana, if you can recruit
those guys because there's the debate stars don't necessarily
matter, but they kind of do for that interior offensive line,
that defensive line as well in the trenches because those guys
are just big. Well, and look, I mean, I think
it's Ari Wasserman has done a lot of really good work at where
I forget who Ari is. Is Ari at on three now?
I've lost track of who's with who at this point, but he's done
a lot of really fascinating studies into, you know, who
exactly gets to contend for national titles every year.
Now. It's a little bit off now
because we're in a 12 team playoff era, probably soon to be
a 16 team playoff era as opposed to four or two.
But it's very clear that stars matter if you want to compete
for titles, if you want to compete for playoff spots.
And one of the things to keep in mind about Wisconsin and Iowa,
like they've had their moments, you know, but they've largely
been teams that have been in the 8 to 10 win range.
They've been on the outside of that conversation looking in.
By and large, I us got grander ambitions than that right now.
And I think, you know, once you taste the College Football
Playoff, and now especially given that the pathway is not
quite as difficult to get there as it used to be because there's
more spots available and because you're in the Big 10.
You've got to recruit at that level.
And it's it's just jarring in a good way to think that IU has a
sales pitch that's working and has a group of people who seem
to be able to deliver not just the sales pitch, but can back it
up with actual demonstrated, you know, history about what they
can do in pretty much every position on the roster.
And. Especially when you look at the
Big 10, the addition of the West Coast schools doesn't
necessarily impact Indiana that much because there's kind of
different regions. I mean, the West Coast schools
aren't necessarily dipping into the Midwest all too often.
I mean, you look at the top five classes in the conference right
now, USC is 1, Oregon is 3, Washington is five, UCLA is
ranked 7th. So the West schools, West Coast
schools have come in, they've kind of dominated the recruiting
front out West. They've kind of taken over.
Where was the PAC 12? And they've kind of dominated
out there. But that doesn't necessarily
affect Indiana. Again, I go back to what I was
saying earlier. Indiana's class is currently
ranked 10th in the twenty 26th class.
Michigan is 9, Iowa is 8. Indiana's ranked ahead of
Illinois, ahead of Wisconsin, ahead of Michigan State.
And this is before Indiana really kind of picks up even
more steam. I mean, there's still plenty of
guys that are left not only in state but in the surrounding
areas as well. So Indiana very, very far from
being done in this class, but you look at it right there.
I mean, this is no longer a team that we've seen.
If you Scroll down, Galen Indiana's been right next to
Purdue the last handful of years and they are not with Chris and
Nettie. Well, and it's interesting
because like the delta between where Indiana's at at 10th and
where Penn State's at and 4th is not that great.
I mean, you're talking about a couple of points.
You know, I mean, Penn State's got a lot more four stars and
that's what's propping them up. But Washington and Maryland are
basically only where they're at because they each have a single
five star. And who knows if those guys are
even going to sign with those teams.
I mean, you know, we've seen some late breaking changes in
some of these things and so it's going to be interesting.
This is a steady progression for IU and the nice thing for IU
football, we can kind of close on this for the football part of
this is that, you know, used to be the the recruiting rankings
were basically the end all be all of where you were going to
be as a program in three years because that was going to be
your talent pool. Now with the transfer portal,
you can add whatever you need on top of it.
You can't disregard football recruiting like you have to have
good recruiting classes. That's where all of your
development comes in. But you know, if Indiana is
somewhere between 6th and 10th in the Big 10 recruiting
rankings regularly and then can add high producing players out
of the transfer portal who want to come and play in Kurt
Zignetti's system, that's really the formula.
Like, I don't think Indiana, like it's like, why is USC
ranked number one in the recruiting rankings for this,
You know, for the Big 10? I mean, it's because they're
USC. Same reason why Ohio State's
where they're at. The idea that IU is going to
punch through and get to that echelon seems fanciful, but that
doesn't mean they can't compete with those teams because I mean,
USC regularly recruits very well and is not a team that really is
really had a lot to show for that on the field, and I think
that's an important thing to remember.
Yeah. And just to add on to that,
Indiana right now, 10th, you have to go back to 2022 again,
that's that Dasan, Mccola, Travelle, Bolin, Omar Cooper,
Nick James kind of class where the last time Indiana had a top
10 ranked recruiting class. And that's where this will be
kind of the determining factor. This will kind of be the season
because obviously those 2022 kids, they committed after that
2020 season, which was pretty special for Indiana. 2021 didn't
and go so well for IU. And then you saw the kind of
fall off and recruiting back down to the regular levels in
2023. So this will be a year the
recruiting, the momentum is only can only go as far as far as you
win games on the football field. So if cursing that he's able to
win and consistently win and keep that going and maybe not
make the playoffs but continue to be that caliber of football
team, then the recruiting mentum will surely follow.
A lot to be excited about and obviously we'll see if anything
else pops in this cycle of the recruiting.
Now just a quick dates reminder for everybody.
We're we're in a commit period here right now for football.
What should we expect calendar wise as we move through summer
and into fall? Right now, as you mentioned,
kind of the commit cycle, there's also Indiana's doing and
a lot of teams around the country are kind of do focusing
a little bit on the 2027 class right now, kind of sending out
those offers, maybe the 2028 class as well, but kind of
sending out those offers, doing some scouting, checking out some
of those younger high school guys.
Then as you get further along into the summer, kind of flips
back, it's visit season, it's camp season, those 2026 guys
will get on campus, it's prime time summer.
They're done with their high school seasons.
They're not even seasons, but they're done with their high
school years as far as schooling is concerned.
So they'll be able to get on campus again.
And then you kind of see kind of another wave of high school
commits after once again, after once their school year is done.
And then after that point, it's kind of one of those situations
where there there will be a handful of guys left.
Again, the camps that visits, those kind of are big things
that you have to look at. So look at more 2026 guys kind
of scheduling visits, getting on campus.
A lot of those guys already have visits scheduled.
A lot of them are kind of waiting for a visit here or two
where Indiana football have a lot of guys in June, July come
and visit. And then you've got 2027 that'll
kind of take shape, that'll get kind of pushed towards the
rearview mirror kind of the back seat come June.
So June, July, keep an eye out on those months for kind of the
2020 sixth class because you've got all those camps, whether
it's a big man camp, offensive line, whatnot and stuff like
that. Guys will be getting down to
campus June, July. Those are the hot months once
that twenty 26th class kind of ramps back up.
Let's switch gears and talk basketball.
As you know, Darren Devries got hired and then it felt like we
were in a waiting game and there were jokes about are they going
to have enough people to put on the roster or you know, what's
going to happen. Then they fill the roster over
about a 3 1/2 week period with a ton of transfers.
Then everything kind of slows down.
Then the coaching staff finally gets announced and you know, we
find out you got Kenny Johnson coming in.
You pull in a new assistant coach who you know was a
recruiter at Tennessee. You've got Drew Adams who comes
in. And then all of a sudden the the
offers start flying. And man, it's been hard to keep
track, Zach, as we're not only getting offers, we're starting
to get visits scheduled. What stuck out to you on the
basketball front in terms of both, like where the commits are
coming from and what types of players Darren Devries and his
staff seem to be trying to go after?
Well, Galen, I think it's really clear that positional
versatility, the kind of ability to play multiple different
positions, do multiple different things on a basketball court is
really the headliner for Darren Devries and his staff.
You look at the transfer portal commitments, there is plenty of
positional versatility there. I mean, there's not a guy taller
than 6 foot 8 on. I know that's been talked about
at great length, whether that's a good idea or not, but that's a
conversation for another day. But you've got plenty of
versatility. You've got guards that are 6
foot 6. You've got guards that are 6
foot three. You've got wings that can handle
the ball. You've got plenty of guys that
can shoot, and that's just the transfer portal class alone.
You look at the kind of high school guys that Indiana has
kind of begun to offer and trying to schedule visits, it's
again more positional versatility.
There's guys that are guards, but they can shoot, they can
play off the ball. There's forwards that are 6869,
they can drive, they can space the floor a little bit.
You know, it's all about positional versatility.
That's kind of been the name of the game when we've seen that
with the guys at Indiana brought in not only in the transfer
portal, but also the guys at NDA has watched this past weekend in
the first live period in session 2 for both EYBL and Adidas.
Three SSB versatility. That's the name of the game.
Versatility shooting as well. You guys, Indiana wants shooters
as well. That's kind of been a common
theme, but positional versatility shooting not only in
the transfer portal, but also in the recruiting class.
That's been the name of the game so far for Darren to reason the
staff. Let's kind of break down a
little bit what each of these assistant coaches is bringing to
the table right now. Let's start with Drew Adams.
We heard from Drew Adams. If anybody watched that, the
players Perspective podcast that Hoosiers connected.
Sydney Parrish interviewed Coach Adams last week.
I think it was. And you know, obviously Drew
Adams not not a a new name to people around Bloomington.
If you've been around long enough, he's been at Cincinnati
here recently. I mean, overall thoughts on what
he's bringing to the table in terms of his recruiting like
Umbrella I guess and and what you would expect to see in terms
of the types of recruits that that he's going after?
Yeah. I mean, Drew Adams, his kind of
recruiting specification, his expertise, I guess you could
call it, is Indiana Elite. It's the state of Indiana.
He was a coach, he worked with Indiana Elite.
He's really close with that Indiana Elite program and let's
just say Galen, that is not a bad program to be close with
that. There's plenty of highly touted
guys that come out of that program year in and year out.
Plenty of highly talented guys on 2026 and 2027 classes that
put on phenomenal shows this past weekend.
Indiana, Drew Adams specifically, but Darren
Devries, Rod Clark, Kenny Johnson, those types of guys.
They were watching those Indiana Elite teams.
They were in Iowa on the three SSB circuit.
So Drew Adams, Darren Devries, they got a good look at those
guys. Some of those guys like Jason
Gardner, junior from Fisher Scoopers, Zachary Anthony
Thompson is one of the top ranked players in the 2020 sixth
class. He plays for Indiana Elite too.
And what's curious about Indiana Elite?
It's not just Indiana guys, it's kind of Midwest guys.
I mean, you mentioned Anthony Thompson, he's from Western
Reserve, Ohio. I mean, that's not a guy from
Indiana. But again, that Indiana Elite
connection, the state of Indiana as a whole, even Cincinnati a
little bit, we saw that Drew Adams almost got Flori Badunga
to commit to Cincinnati before ultimately committed to Kansas.
So those connections plentiful for Drew Adams, not only just in
the state of Indiana, more specifically though with Indiana
Elite, which is a fantastic AAU program.
You also, of course, a new name in the mix, Rod Clark, the
former Tennessee assistant. This is kind of a different type
of coach than what we've seen Indiana higher in in past
cycles, but certainly brings a lot to the table as well.
What where is where is Rod Clark's kind of locus of control
from a recruiting perspective? It's interesting.
He doesn't necessarily have an expertise.
Now obviously he came over from Tennessee, so he came over from
Tennessee. So he's got plenty of
connections with kind of the Tennessee area, but he's much
more of a national guy. He's Simply put, just a great
recruiter. I was talking to one of the
Tennessee Rivals guys after Rod Clark got hired.
I was like, hey, give me the rundown of what Rod Clark brings
to the table from a recruiting standpoint.
And he just, the word he just kept on repeating was elite.
He's just an elite recruiter. Almost got Nate Ahmed, who's one
of the top guys in the 2025 class to commit to Tennessee.
And he's got plenty of guys, whether it's Dalton Connect who
helped get via the transfer portal, Kennedy Chandler.
I mean, these are guys that were developing and Rod Clark helped
to get them to where they were to to Tennessee.
And so I think that's the biggest thing.
Rod Clark, he's got kind of, again, you go back to Kirsten,
he's got the aura, he's got the RIZ people in the recruiting
game, people around the country, not just in the Midwest, not
just in Tennessee, not just around Indiana, but as far to
the West Coast, to the East Coast as well.
They know who Rod Clark is. He's got a reputation for being
an elite recruiter. Now, it's not necessarily just
in one place. Now, if we do look at somebody
who Indiana offered earlier today, Trey Thompson, he's from
Tennessee and Rod Clark work I know is leading the way kind of
on that recruiting front. That's a new offer for Indiana.
But Rod Clark's kind of leading the way there because he is from
Tennessee. He's known Thompson for about
around a year and a half now since he was recruiting him to
Tennessee, but not necessarily any regional expertise, kind of
just an all around dog. I would I would describe Rod
Clark as he's he's an elite recruiter.
He does it around the country. He's people clamor for Indiana
to land those kind of five stars, those top 10 recruits.
That's Rod, that's Rod Clark. That's what he does.
And then we've got Kenny Johnson, who if you've been
around IU basketball at all, you're very familiar.
Kenny Johnson brings the DMV with him.
And this is where I, I think the immediate impact of, of any of
these hires, like it feels like it was the most pronounced as
there were a ton of DMV related offers.
And now a couple of visits that that we've seen come out of
this. And yeah, this is, this is a
coach that we're familiar with. We've seen what you can do
already with IU recruiting in this area.
And it looks like he's picked right back up where he left off
and then some, frankly. Yeah, and Kenny Johnson, he
should likely excel in the NIL era.
I know the last time he was in Bloomington, there was some
things that he wasn't necessarily allowed to do in the
recruiting front. But I mean, he can go out, shell
out the money, kind of do that kind of stuff now.
And you mentioned the DMV era and area.
And it's not only that, he kind of has that kind of northeast
area, a little bit further and north than just the DMV because
he was at Georgetown. So he's kind of reached into the
New York, New Jersey, that kind of area as well.
But Kenny Johnson, again, very well respected.
He's as much of an expert on the DMV as a guy like Drew Adams is
with Indiana Elite in those types of programs and the DMVI
mean you think about Victor Oladipo, you think about those
types of guys in the 2026 class. There's a handful of guys from
the DMV from that Maryland era area.
And so it'll be interesting to see because you've kind of got
two kind of new entrances to that DMV area.
Obviously, you've got Kenny Johnson is now with Indiana.
He is one of the top recruiters in that area.
Now Buzz Williams with Maryland, he's going to have to try and
battle it out. So it'll be interesting to see.
Indiana obviously has some recent, historic recent
recruiting battles with Maryland Derrick Queen, but we'll see if
Kenny Johnson can kind of help out in that situation because as
you mentioned, he's got the DMV and he's kind of been active.
He was the guy that I believe actually offered Trey Thompson.
If we're talking about recent recruits, he was the guy on a
phone call that actually offered Trey Thompson.
So it's not to say we talked about True Adams of Indiana
Elite. You talk about Rod Clark
nationally and Kenny Johnson and the DMV.
They're strictly held into those areas.
They're they're going to spread out and do more than just that
one specific area. But if there is an area of
expertise, obviously with Kenny Johnson, it's there.
When you get into the three players we've seen so far that
have scheduled visits for June of this year, I think you can.
They've got Kenny Johnson fingerprints on them.
You got latrell Ullman, who's the highest rated of the three
players that are visiting. I think it's what, 40th or 41st
in this upcoming class? And he's from Richmond, which is
of course, in that's the V part of the DMV of you've got Sammy
Jackson coming in. And then you've also got Prince
Alexander Moody, who we've heard.
And again, as you say, kind of provisional versatility.
All those guys are between 6 four and six eight.
You'll, you'll probably see some other ones pop up here as well.
Are you surprised that we've seen this much action this
quickly? I mean, you kind of have to do
this in this era, but it does feel like we went from no news
to a ton of things happening all at once with basketball
recruiting. I mean, that's kind of how it
works just with the calendar of the high school basketball
recording. Obviously this was the first
live period session this past weekend, So really the first
time that Darren De Vries, the coaching staff has been able to
go out and kind of see guys in person.
Obviously there were some guys that when you bring in bring in
a completely new staff, you've got guys from all around the
country, Kenny, John, all those types of guys.
They're going to kind of bring some offers with them.
You kind of see that with some guys like a literal Allman like
Sammy Jackson, Prince, Alexander Moody.
Those are kind of guys that Kenny Johnson had been
recruiting and I was continuing to recruit elsewhere.
Rod Clark's the same way with a guy like Trey Thompson.
So you've kind of seen that carry over.
And so no, it's not necessarily surprising.
It's just Indiana, it's weird, they're kind of playing with a
different type of hand because they haven't been on the ground,
they haven't been kind of doing this.
I mean, Darren Devries hasn't been recruiting any of these
guys to Indiana. I mean, if you had that 2025
class at West Virginia, those guys are all now gone.
But now he's got to shift gears completely and try and figure
out a class in 2026 for Indiana. But we've seen Indiana be
aggressive. We've obviously talked about the
positional versatility, I think being aggressive.
And I think what Darren Devries has done is he's shown how
active he can be on the recruiting trail and how active
he's was willing to be. Obviously that was one of Mike
Woodson's things that he didn't necessarily please Indiana
basketball fans with was maybe how inactive sometimes he was on
the recruiting show. I know here at the hoosier.com,
we talked to Trey Thompson earlier, that guy that the kid
that got the Indiana offer this morning, he said that Darren De
Rees actually texted him over the weekend.
They they watched him play on the Adidas three SSB circuit.
And then he got that text from Darren De Rees.
I believe his exact quote was somewhere along the lines of if
the head coach was texting you, you've done something right or
that's pretty special, something like that.
So I think the ability and the willingness to show that he can
go above and beyond. I mean, even in the transfer
portal, you go back to Lamar Wilkerson, Wilkerson said that
he flew on the plane Darren of Reese did to go meet with him.
So he's shown that he's. Might have been in the room
while he was zooming with field of 68.
It's possible, right? Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, Darren, the reason sown his willingness to
go that extra mile, go extra far and beyond.
And I think that will stand out when you look at some of these
goods because like we talked about with the football side,
you're not just recruiting the kid, you're recruiting kind of
the high school coach, the AAU coach and the parents as well.
Yeah. I mean, it makes a big
difference. And we talked about this, well,
many of us talked about it over the last couple of years, like
you just, you can't leave recruiting to your assistance
and you really need active assistance as well as having an
active head coach. Like it's not an either or.
And you mentioned like Indiana is playing catch up with this
class 'cause you know, for a lot of these guys, there's been in
depth conversations and, and interactions and, you know,
attempts at getting guys to commit for a couple years now.
I mean, who was it? Tony Bryant is a good example of
that. Like he was offered by Tennessee
by Rod Clark while he was at Tennessee.
And then now Indiana's jumping in.
That'll be a tough one to make up ground on just cause of how
how coveted he is as a recruit. But those are the kinds of
things where you're almost going to need a two year cycle with
basketball, much like we saw with football where you only you
had to go through a full season to really start to make inroads
on the recruiting trail with the guys that you want.
And you got to paper it over a little bit with Portal or you
got to find a couple of guys who are willing to take a crack on
you because you've got more playing time.
And that's one of the things I think it's going to be really
fascinating with this class for Indiana basketball is they
purposefully went after a lot of veteran Portal guys, guys that
have only got one year. They don't have a ton
necessarily like left in the tank for the following season.
You may get a guy here or there who decides to stick around for
whatever reason. You're obviously going to have
more portal signings, but that's going to have to be attractive
to some of these top rated players in this next class
because there's going to be a lot of playing time and you're
going to be playing in the Big 10 of the team that people are
going to be paying attention to. Yeah, I think that was something
that Latrelle Allman specifically noted when I talked
to him after he got that offer and then eventually scheduled an
Indiana visit. He said there's just so much
opportunity to go to Indiana and be a household name.
And I think despite kind of the lack of recent success for
Indiana, there's still just kind of something about Indiana.
These kids, they grew up, they know about it.
They know what you can become at Indiana, the type of folk hero
you can become if you come to Indiana and you produce in that
type of way. And it is, it's interesting
because this is almost, you mentioned that we, we mentioned
Indiana's kind of playing behind in this recruiting class.
It's almost kind of like a transfer portal type of
recruitment strategy for Indiana.
It's kind of short expedited process and he has to go, you
know, go quickly. Typically think of the high
school recruitments and that's years over years.
But this is just one year. Indiana really only has a couple
of months before a lot of these guys decide to commit, probably
prior to the start of the high school basketball season.
And it's also interesting because.
When you look at the transfer portal class, there's I mean the
Tucker Devries, the Reed Bailey, there's some top tier elite
transfer portal pickups. But Indiana kind of went a lot
with that kind of under the radar guy, the guy that maybe
necessarily isn't the four or five star transfer, isn't a top
100 transfer but fits into that Daren debris system.
But you've kind of seen that not shift, but be different on the
recruiting front and far. The high schoolers are concerned
because Indiana's shooting for the stars.
There's pretty much every guy that Indiana's offered.
There's a couple of guys outside the top 100, but most of them
are four or five star guys. Most of them are top 50 guys,
some even in the top ten in their respective recruiting
classes. So Indiana not necessarily
waiting to go with those lower end guys and kind of the Purdue
strategy where you get those two three stars and you kind of
build out the roster like that. Indiana, Darren Devries, they're
kind of shooting for those upper echelon guys, but they're upper
echelon guys that still fit that mold of positional versatility
of shooting. So we'll see if Devries and how
many of these guys he can actually land.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting.
And look, this is in this era, basketball works so much
differently than football in terms of the way that you accrue
talent and who you can put on the floor.
It's a less there's a lot less long tailed development in most
cases with guys. And I think you see this like
Dusty May took a year at Michigan and it wasn't like he
blew the doors off the joint with the recruiting class for
2025. I mean, they've got a, you know
what, a pair of four stars and and I think an unrated recruit.
And then they've got a bunch of guys that are transfers.
They're really good transfers, though, maybe the best transfer
class in the whole portal. But you can you can cobble
things together across both. And I think what we've talked
about one of the big debates in IU basketball circles was what
do you even need to worry about recruiting?
Clearly you do, you know, I don't think it's something you
can just say we're just going to go in the portal and that's it.
But I use in this unique spot right now where they have a
couple of really, well, they have three like really good
recruiters, like among the best recruiters, you know, in college
basketball. They're going to be doing a lot
of work on that front. And as we've talked about on
this show before, it's not necessarily about who you get to
commit and come as a freshman. It's about what relationships
can you build with the guys. So if they go somewhere and it's
not actually what they thought it was going to be, or you
suddenly have a spot open for them to be a starter when
they're a sophomore or junior and they want to transfer, well,
now you've got that relationship that you've built up as opposed
to having to start it from scratch.
I mean, how many times have we seen a guy that was recruited by
a team in high school, went somewhere else and then ends up
there at the transfer portal? I mean, it happens so much.
You definitely in this day and age of recruiting, you cannot
burn any bridges as a as a head coach or as an assistant coach.
You have to be able to keep and maintain those connections.
I think that's also a big part of it.
Gone are the days of 5-6 plus player recruiting classes from
the high school ranks. You're not looking to Indiana's
cast a decently wide net. There's around 10 to 15 offers
that have gone out in the last month for Indiana.
The 2020 sixth class alone, you're not looking to land all
those guys. There's no need to bat 1000.
If you get two or three of those guys, I'd say you're pretty
happy with that type of recruiting class.
The, The only schools in the Big 10 that signed more than three
players in their recruiting class for 2025 are Washington,
Penn State, Rutgers, Northwestern.
And I think, well, I guess Illinois is in there too.
Other than Illinois, I think you could look at all of those teams
and say those are teams that are in trouble right now in the Big
10 in terms of trying to figure out where they fit and how
they're going to land people. And they're also, I think all
four of those teams are teams that don't have much of an NIL
budget. So they have to go to the high
school ranks. Whereas Indiana has the benefit
right now of of having money to play with in the NIL portal
while also having money to play with when it comes to straight
up recruiting. And of course, you throw
Illinois in there, but half of those commits, two of those four
are international guys. So they kind of do it a little
bit differently. Brad Underwood likes to reach
into that international kind of pool.
But you bring up Dusty May. I mean, if you look at Indiana's
class again, it'll just like in football, it's right behind
Dusty Mays, the 2025 class. Francisi is a fantastic player.
He'll be great for Indiana, maybe not near 1, but eventually
throughout his Indiana career. And you look at it, I mean, even
the top teams, I mean Purdue doesn't have a great ranked 2025
class. I mean, they have the 14th
ranked class in the Big 10 for 2025.
But again, it's not necessarily about the stars.
That's where kind of basketball and football are different
because you can get a three star guy that's 6 foot 8 and 220 lbs
and is that an athletic guy? But you can't necessarily get
that three star that's going to be a behemoth on the offensive
line in football. So the stars, they don't matter
as much for basketball, I would say, as they do in football.
Of course, first, you still want that top and talent, That top
and talent. We saw it Duke did this past
season with kind of that freshman class, those of those
top end guys. But there's multiple ways to do
it in basketball. We've already seen Darren De
Breeze has had the ability, not just here at IU but with West
Virginia too, to kind of build his teams through the transfer
portal. But it'll be interesting to see
how he balances both moving forward and kind of what an
ideal high school recruiting class quantity wise looks like
for him moving forward. Zac Brown and great stuff.
Really appreciate you sharing your insights.
And if you want to catch Zach, he's got his Twitter feed up or
his X feed up in the the floor. The video here.
But if you are listening instead of watching, it's at Zach with
an H Browning 17. You can catch his work the
Hoosier on on three. I highly recommend it and Zach
enjoy the rest of the summer. Hopefully we'll talk again as we
get some more recruits committing or or what not.
It should be a a wild ride for both football and basketball
this summer. Absolutely, Galen.
Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to it.
Absolutely. All right, thanks to all you
folks for tuning in. This is Crimson cast once again.
We'll be back with a lot more podcast coverage later on this
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