Author: Dustin Dopirak

Part of the reason Indiana went big on its running backs coach hire, bringing back Deland McCullough from the Kansas City Chiefs to run the room and hold the title of associate head coach, is because the running game was one of the only facets of the game in which the 2020 Hoosiers were not particularly strong. In a 6-2 season in which the Hoosiers finished second in the Big Ten East and ranked No. 12 in the nation, they finished 12th in the Big Ten in rushing offense with 108.6 yards per game. They were even worse in yards…

Newly hired Indiana assistant basketball coach Dane Fife has agreed to a two-year contract that pays him $375,000 per year with an annual retention bonus of $25,000, according to a memorandum of understanding provided to The Daily Hoosier by Indiana athletics. Though the the tenure of the contract is only two years, one-third the length of head coach Mike Woodson’s, the contract automatically extends every year on June 30, starting on June 30, 2022 unless Fife receives a notice of non-renewal. Fife also receives $20,000 in moving expenses and $2,000 annually in adidas product. Fife will be paid a bonus…

Khristian Lander apparently didn’t make it easy on Mike Woodson, at least not to start with anyway. After the year Lander had, he had reason to feel some level of apprehension. His father Keith said last month that if he could go back in time knowing what he knows now, he would still reclassify as he did, graduate, and start his college basketball career early. But that doesn’t mean he wants to relive the 2020-21 season. The five-star recruit from Evansville Reitz High School went into the season with some draft experts believing he had a chance to be one-and-done…

Trayce Jackson-Davis was ready to move on from college basketball, even though it wasn’t at all certain that he’d be taken in the NBA Draft if he entered. After an emotionally draining season played almost entirely without fans that ended with six straight losses and the coach who recruited him getting fired, the Indiana All-American forward was ready to get out of Bloomington and go somewhere he’d get a paycheck, whether that was the NBA or the G-League or some place else. “When the coaches got fired, my mindset was honestly, I didn’t know who they were going to bring…

Indiana All-American forward Trayce Jackson-Davis announced on his Twitter account Friday that he will stay for his junior year instead of entering the NBA Draft. New Indiana coach Mike Woodson said keeping Jackson-Davis on the roster would be a priority and that he would “beg” Jackson-Davis to stay with him so that he could help Jackson-Davis improve his draft stock and help Indiana in Woodson’s first year at the helm. Jackson-Davis posted a graphic on the account with photos of him and Indiana’s five national championship banners and headlined the graphic “Not Done Yet.” “Indiana basketball is something I have…

Logan Duncomb was pleased with the hire of Mike Woodson as Indiana’s basketball coach from the beginning and figured the only way he wouldn’t be coming to Bloomington was if Woodson told him straight up that he wouldn’t be a good fit for his system. Not surprisingly, Woodson didn’t say that. What Duncomb expected to hear from Woodson is what he heard, and so the 6-foot-9 center from Cincinnati’s Archbishop Moeller High School remains committed to Indiana as the lone signee in the Class of 2021. “Unless something drastic were to happen, I don’t know, something I was not expecting,…

Indiana has three punters on its spring practice roster gunning to replace the graduated Haydon Whitehead. There’s a good chance that the man who wins the job will punt for the very first time in a football game that counts on Sept. 4 against Iowa. James Evans, a freshman from Auckland, New Zealand, had zero football experience when he arrived on campus this spring. The first time he put on pads in his life was the third practice of the spring. And at this point, he doesn’t really have the hang of that yet. “You kind of take it for…

Indiana senior guard Ali Patberg posted on her Instagram account Wednesday evening that she will return for another season, taking advantage of the NCAA rule not counting this season against athletes’ eligibility because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Patberg posted a graphic of herself wearing an IU uniform and an IU towel hanging over her shoulder. Written over her were the words “Not Done Yet” in black with her signature in the middle. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ali Patberg (@alipatberg14) The caption below the graphic said “See you next season Hoosiers.” Patberg finished third…

The increasing availability of vaccines, the playing of the NCAA Tournament and the simple existence of spring football practice have made things start to feel a little more normal at Indiana, but the Indiana football program was reminded last week that things aren’t still entirely normal yet. The Hoosiers cancelled practice last Thursday for a reason undisclosed at the time, and Indiana coach Tom Allen confirmed at his press conference Wednesday that it was in fact COVID-19 related. The Hoosiers didn’t need to pause and returned to practice Saturday. However, in another move that made clear that everything isn’t quite…

In an interview with Dan Dakich Monday and then another with Indiana play-by-play man Don Fischer, Mike Woodson indicated he intends to make keeping forward Trayce Jackson-Davis a priority because he believes he can make him a better professional prospect than he is right now. Unlike five other players on Indiana’s 2020-21 roster — guards Khristian Lander, Armaan Franklin and Parker Stewart, forwards Race Thompson and Jordan Geronimo — Jackson-Davis has not entered the transfer portal. However, the third-team All-American and first-team All-Big Ten pick is an NBA prospect after averaging 19.1 points and 9.0 rebounds in his sophomore season.…