Building the backcourt
Indiana landed its first commitment from the transfer portal today via Conor Enright, a guard who joins the Hoosiers after one season at DePaul and two at Drake.
Enright played for Indiana head coach Darian DeVries at Drake, starting all 33 games his sophomore year at the point guard position for the Bulldogs. He also played alongside Tucker DeVries that season.
Last year at DePaul, Enright started all 23 games he appeared in, before missing ten games with a shoulder injury. Before the injury, he had one of the highest usage rates for Christ Holtmann’s Blue Demon’s last year.
Enright’s value as a power conference point guard is his passing ability, with a 37.8 assist rate that put him 16th nationally. He averaged 6.2 assists per game last year with DePaul, a big uptick from the 3.2 per game he averaged at Drake.
Despite being used more as a passer at DePaul, he did see an uptick in 3-point attempts, getting to 3.5 from three the year prior. With the higher volume, he shot just 32.5%, but was over 40% the year before, so he should command respect on the perimeter.
Getting into his highlights from last season, Enright appeared to shoot best when he had space and got the ball on a kick out. He doesn’t have explosive athleticism, so there aren’t many clips of him breaking down his guy one on one for a shot on the perimeter.
That said, Enright is capable of getting past his defender and taking advantage of defenses that are slow to rotate. Given his passing ability, bigs are reluctant to leave their man to pick up Enright, which allows him to get mostly uncontested looks at the rim.
At 6’2” 180 lbs, Enright may face new challenges trying to finish inside in the Big Ten, but he’s a capable enough passer and shooter that he can still be a productive guard.
Whether he’s Indiana’s primary ball handler or not next season, Enright projects to be a good distributor and shooter in the backcourt, with an added ability to slow the game down and get the offense under control when needed.