Anthony Leal has become “that guy” for Indiana.
What guy?
You know that guy. Brad Davison at Wisconsin. Aaron Craft at Ohio State. Brian Cardinal at Purdue.
Yeah. That guy. You love him on your team, hate him on the other team.
During the IU pregame radio show ahead of their contest at Oregon last week, color commentator and former Hoosiers guard Errek Suhr made just that observation about Leal.
“I’ve been saying for years, Indiana needs a guy the other teams absolutely hate,” Suhr said.
In Leal, they’ve got that guy.
With Indiana down 49-45 Saturday with less than nine minutes to play against Ohio State and points very hard to come by, Leal went into “that guy” mode.
As Ohio State tried to inbound the ball to John Mobley, Jr., Leal picked up full court and was uncomfortably in Mobley’s space. You’ve seen these cat-and-mouse games many times. Think Wisconsin’s Max Klesmit (another one of those guys) sticking his hair in C.J. Gunn’s face last season.
And played just right, a guy like Leal can completely change the flow of a game in one of those moments.
Irritated by Leal, Mobley tried create separation and hit Leal in the face. The officials called a foul on Mobley, and Leal erupted in the kind of applause the other teams “absolutely hate.” Oh and Leal asked for a review for a flagrant foul on Mobley. He got that too. Because he’s that guy.
After two made free throws by Leal, and then two more by Luke Goode a second later as part of the same possession, that guy had IU tied at 49 after trailing for 25 straight minutes. The tone of the game and the energy inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall had completely changed.
Leal acknowledged after IU’s 66-60 win there’s an element of his approach that involves getting in his opponent’s head.
“You know, for me, it’s just trying to play as hard as I can and trusting that good things will happen in that moment, just causing a little bit of frustration throughout the game and eventually it leads to something good for us,” he said.
Leal always seems to be involved in minor skirmishes. Block outs that take bother players to the ground are a local favorite. He took Purdue’s Caleb Furst to the ground that way, and Leal’s first step upon getting up has become the stuff of “that guy” legend.
But the fifth-year at Indiana has been about much more than just stirring up trouble.
There’s data to support that he’s one of, if not the best defender in the Big Ten.
Bart Torvik publishes offensive and defensive box score plus/minus data that attempts to estimate the contribution by an individual player when they are on each end of the court. Based on Torvik’s data, Leal has the best defensive box score plus/minus in the entire Big Ten, and he’s No. 13 in the nation. He leads the next closest player in the Big Ten, Michigan’s Danny Wolf, by a wide margin.
In fact, Leal’s 5.4 defensive box score plus/minus is the best mark by an IU player since Victor Oladipo’s 5.5 in his 2013 Defensive Player of the Year season.
Indiana’s staff has acknowledged that their 94-69 home loss to Illinois was a major turning point in this 2024-25 season. IU coach Mike Woodson said “all hell broke loose” that night. And Woodson’s response was to turn Leal loose.
Leal had started a grand total of two games over five seasons ahead of IU’s road game at Ohio State in January. He had played more than 20 minutes in a game just nine times in 81 appearances, and he never came off the bench in 67 more games.
So to say he has come out of nowhere as a full-time starter averaging 27.8 minutes per game over IU’s last 13 contests is a significant understatement.
Don’t go looking for Leal’s contributions in the scoring column. He’s comically in the “nearly invisible” section of the player data on IU’s KenPom page, with the lowest usage rate and percentage of shots taken of any player on the team. Even as a starter over the last 13 games, Leal is taking just 2.3 shots per outing, even while shooting 57.1% overall from the field this season including 41.2% from three.
But he’s certainly not invisible on the defensive end.
Since becoming a starter, Leal has routinely been tasked with guarding the other team’s most significant perimeter threat. Indiana does a lot of switching along the perimeter of its defense, so it hasn’t been like Leal is guarding those players exclusively. But there have been some eye-catching “off nights” by opposing guards lately.
Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton was 2-of-11 from the field on Saturday. Oregon’s Jackson Shelstad was 5-of-13 last week. Purdue’s Braden Smith was 2-of-8 with six turnovers in Bloomington. And IU’s team defense has improved lately. The Hoosiers have gone 5-2 over their last seven games while holding opponents to 67.1 points per outing.
On Saturday, Leal posted a career high with eight rebounds.
“Seniors that didn’t want to lose,” Woodson said in response to that latest outlier effort by the Bloomington native.
Leal has the best steal rate on the team, and the best block rate among the guards and wings.
Find a defensive measure on this Indiana team, and you’ll find Leal near the top of the chart.
But just as important, look at Indiana’s late season turnaround, and everywhere you’ll find the fingerprints of “that guy.”
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