Indiana basketball set to begin offseason workouts

It has been a busy few months for the Indiana basketball program on the recruiting trail, but this week starts the next phase in its offseason.

Monday marks the beginning of offseason workouts for the team.

According to the NCAA, coaches are only allowed a maximum of two hours per week for ‘on-court and basketball-related skill training’. In total, they are allowed a maximum of eight hours per week with players. Most of that will be spent in the weight room.

For Indiana, it’s a critical time of the offseason with six new faces joining the program. Three players arrive from the transfer portal and three from the high school ranks as part of Indiana’s 2023 recruiting class.

With nearly an entirely different roster from last year, Mike Woodson will have his challenges — but at the same time, it’s an exciting moment for him and his staff. 

“I mean I got really seven new players and I gotta figure it out in terms of how we gonna play, who can do what,” Woodson said last week. “So I’m kinda anxious to see this next week. A lot of the guys are coming back this weekend and getting them in the gym and see who can do what.”

The main difference for the Hoosiers will be entering a season without All-American Trayce Jackson-Davis. The four-year Indiana standout is off to the NBA and Indiana will look for an entirely new system on the offensive end of the floor. For Woodson, that’s something that comes with experience, however.

“I’ve never coached a low-post player,” Woodson explained. ” … So there are a lot of things that I started implementing because again, it was new for me with the guy with his back against the bucket and giving him the ball and trying to design things to get him to basketball. I don’t have that anymore coming into this season and I can pretty much go back to my comfort zone and how we somewhat played in New York.

“The fact that we’ve added a seven-footer, a 6-10 guy, a 6-8 guy, I mean that helps us defensively when we do switch and it helps us at the rim. It helps us rebound it. I mean a lot of things that come along with adding longer, athletic, and rangy guys on your team.”

Indiana is coming off of back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances and a 23-win season last year. 2023-24 is a critical season for Indiana in order to maintain the recent level of success its had in Woodson’s return to Bloomington and help bridge the gap between the Jackson-Davis era and the new era of Indiana basketball.

Indiana still has one available scholarship for the upcoming season, but it’s yet to be determined if it will be used.

SEE ALSO: Indiana basketball recruiting beginning to click on all cylinders: ‘I wanted to be able to sit at the table with the best players’

Make sure to follow Hoosier Illustrated on Twitter @Indiana_FRN and YouTube to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics.