2024-25 Indiana non-conference opponent preview: SIU Edwardsville

  • 07/25/2024 9:10 am in

Indiana’s 2024-25 non-conference schedule was finalized on July 9 and Inside the Hall will have a team-by-team look at each opponent. First up: SIU Edwardsville.

Indiana will open its fourth season under Mike Woodson with an opponent that should provide an opportunity for a comfortable victory.

SIU Edwardsville, which finished the 2023-24 season 17-16 and No. 286 in KenPom, is currently projected as the 316th-best team nationally for next season, per Bart Torvik.

According to Pomeroy, the Cougars finished last season with the nation’s 264th-ranked offense and 273rd-ranked defense. The current Torvik projections for next season have SIU Edwardsville with the nation’s 338th-best offense and 251st-best defense.

The meeting between the Hoosiers and the Cougars to open the season on Wednesday, November 6, will be the third meeting all-time between the programs. Indiana beat SIU Edwardsville 88-54 on December 10, 2010 in Bloomington and 83-60 on December 2, 2016, also in Bloomington.

The Cougars are led by 46-year-old Brian Barone, who enters his sixth season in Edwardsville. Barone once worked at Indiana under Tom Crean as the director of basketball operations and video coordinator from 2008 through 2010. Barone is 64-91 all-time at Edwardsville and 35-56 in conference play.

Like plenty of programs, SIU Edwardsville experienced a high amount of roster turnover in the offseason. Four of the program’s five starters from last season moved on, with two exhausting their eligibility and two leaving via the portal. The portal departures were leading scorer Damarco Minor (Oregon State) and fifth-leading scorer Terrance Thompson, who has yet to land at another school, according to verbalcommits.com.

The lone returning starter for Barone is senior guard Ray’Sean Taylor, who averaged 13.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 30.7 minutes per game. The 6-foot-1 guard shot just 38.4 overall from the field but did connect at a 36.7 percent clip from beyond the 3-point line. Taylor shot 80.5 percent from the free-throw line.

He’ll likely be joined in the backcourt by senior Desmond Polk, who will be utilizing an extra year of eligibility granted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A career 26.9 percent 3-point shooter, the 6-foot-4 Polk averaged 4.2 points in 18.9 minutes per game last season. He started four of the 29 games he appeared in.

Edwardsville went the junior college route to fill vacated minutes on the wing, adding a pair of teammates from Barton Community College.

Ring Malith, a 6-foot-9 wing originally from South Sudan and Myles Thompson, from Hutchinson, Kansas, will likely play significant roles immediately for the Cougars.

Malith averaged 12.2 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.2 assists for Barton, who finished 36-1 and won the junior college national championship. Thompson, who is 6-foot-7, averaged 14 points, 6.7 rebounds and one assist.

Bradley transfer Kyle Thomas should give Barone a legitimate post presence at 6-foot-10 and 235 pounds. SIU Edwardsville will be the third school for Thomas, who played his freshman season at Eastern Illinois and sophomore year at Bradley.

Another junior college transfer, Jordan Hamilton from South Idaho, should also be in the rotation. Hamilton averaged 8.5 points and 4.1 rebounds at South Idaho last season.

Last season, Indiana struggled to pull away from several inferior opponents early in the season at Assembly Hall, including Florida Gulf Coast, Army and Wright State to open the season. To avoid an early free fall in the computer rankings, the Hoosiers need to take care of business against an opponent that is clearly in the bottom third of college basketball. According to the Torvik rankings, Indiana is viewed as 25 points better than SIU Edwardsville in Bloomington.

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