IU basketball's recruiting focus back in-state after years looking beyond Indiana's borders

BLOOMINGTON – Their hard yards run in this spring’s transfer window, Mike Woodson and his staff shifted their energy to the prep recruiting trail last weekend.

The Hoosiers covered major ground during the most recent evaluation window, digging their hands into a 2025 class that could settle key roster-building questions for the next 2-3 years at least. IU coaches tracked a handful of intriguing targets, including top-15 forward and Indianapolis native Jalen Haralson, as well as Long Island Lutheran guard Kiyan Anthony, whose rather famous father (Carmelo) goes back years with Woodson.

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But above perhaps all else, there’s an undeniably different feel to Indiana’s efforts in the rising senior class this time around: Woodson and his staff might not have to go far from home to do their most important work.

It was always a dangerous assumption, that simply because Woodson was from Indiana, he would overemphasize recruiting the state. A coach who spent his entire post-playing career in the NBA — working in stops from New York to Atlanta to Los Angeles, with more in between — was always going to bring connections and a worldview that extended beyond Marion County, even if Woodson still holds great affinity for the city that raised him.

That the opposite has been true in such a pronounced way has still been surprising.

To this point in his tenure, of the eight prep players Woodson has signed, just one came to Bloomington from in state. That player, Lawrence North guard CJ Gunn, originally committed to the previous staff.

Further, it’s not like IU has struck out time and again close to home. The Hoosiers have recruited a handful of in-state prospects (Xavier Booker comes to mind), but they’ve been equally happy to leverage connections elsewhere, like Atlanta and the East Coast, to pursue high-level talent.

The unspoken message might have surprised some fans, but it’s not hard to discern now. If Woodson sees the talent he needs close to home, he’ll pursue it — he has taken three Indiana natives as transfers — but he’s happy to look further afield if the right players aren’t so close to Bloomington.

In the 2025 class, Woodson appears to have found the former. IU’s efforts now look certain to retain a firm in-state feel.

There’s Haralson, formerly of Fishers now at La Lumiere , one of the most highly regarded wing/forwards in the class. Greenfield-Central’s Braylon Mullins, the No. 95 player in the class per 247Sports whose performances this spring have landed offers from, among others, North Carolina, and ensured Mullins will not be merely the No. 95 player in the class much longer. Trent Sisley, Mullins’ AAU teammate, plays at Heritage Hills and has made the trip to Bloomington multiple times.

While Darius Adams is originally from New Jersey, he plays at LaLu with Haralson, and holds an IU offer. Even Kentucky center Malachi Moreno sort of qualifies here — one of the top big men in his class, Moreno plays on the same Indiana Elite squad as Mullins and Sisley.

There are plenty more targets from further away. Indiana’s gaze is not limited to the state line.

But it is firmly trained on some key in-state targets, and for perhaps the first time in Woodson’s tenure, homegrown players look like centerpieces.

Basketball recruiting is a world without absolutes. There are no complete givens or certainties. And while most coaches will hope to lean on certain connections (the sexier word for these is usually pipelines), reality is that gaze will always shift to wherever there is an intersection of need and interested talent.

For fully two recruiting cycles, Indiana fans wondered why their Indiana-alumnus coach wasn’t spending more time recruiting in Indiana. That, it appears, is about to change, if Woodson has his way in the coming months.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU basketball's recruiting focus back in-state after years looking beyond Indiana's borders