Mike Woodson signed a dynamic option at shooting guard for the coming season through the portal.
Indiana men’s basketball approached the transfer portal with a pretty clear goal this offseason: get pieces for the backcourt.
Former Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Myles Rice has drawn most of the attention and will in all likelihood get the starting nod at point guard. Rice is incredibly talented and raises the ceiling for the team this year, but don’t leave out Kanaan Carlyle.
Carlyle was himself an extremely talented prospect out of Overtime Elite in Atlanta when he committed to Stanford last year. The guy just creates for himself in a way that few others can and was projected as a future NBA Draft pick as a high schooler.
Things didn’t go over well at Stanford, with Jerod Haase ultimately being fired upon the conclusion of the 2023-24 season. Carlyle had quite a bit on his shoulders for that Cardinal team and was tasked with creating quite a bit.
Sometimes he dazzled, like a 28-point performance against Arizona and scoring 31 against Washington State. Other times he struggled with inefficiency, there’s a reason Haase was fired after all.
Things will be different in Bloomington. He’ll spend more time off the ball on offense, using that explosiveness to get open for opportunities off the catch or down the court in transition.
Carlyle has the speed and quickness to get to the rim like Rice but needs to improve his efficiency scoring there as well as across the board, frankly. If Indiana can improve his finishing ability and get him running off of screens, he’s hard to stop.
A lot of times Carlyle will pull up from midrange when coming off of screens. Which is fine if he can hit those at a rate similar to that of Jalen Hood-Schifino. Mike Woodson has shown he doesn’t shy away from scoring in the midrange area of the court, so expect Carlyle to get some work in there.
Additionally, Carlyle had to take over a good amount of creation for the Cardinal. That’ll probably take a dip with Rice next to him, but Woodson has shown something of a preference for having two creators in the backcourt and has deployed those lineups when injury hasn’t prevented him from doing so.
Carlyle won’t be Indiana’s point guard, but he’s had enough wow passes to trust him making those plays. That’ll help open up the court drastically from where the Hoosiers’ creation capabilities were last year.
He comes to Indiana with plenty of defensive upside that Woodson will look to tap into. Carlyle is 6’3”, but has great length for his overall size and projects as a problem on the defensive end.