Aaron Shifron

He experienced the most successful seasons the Hoosiers have had in the last two decades.

Cody Zeller is now long removed from wearing the IU colors, but his time playing in Bloomington took the Hoosiers to heights they hadn’t reached in decades — namely being the #1-ranked team in the country.

Following three rebuilding years under former coach Tom Crean, Zeller became the first big recruiting win for the program in several years, being ranked no. 10 in the country in the 2011 247 Sports recruiting rankings.

Zeller lived up to the hype with his contributions, being the team’s leading scorer both seasons he was there. His time as a Hoosier saw IU go 56-16 and win a Big Ten Title. Indiana also reached two of the three Sweet 16s the program has competed in over the last 18 years.

Zeller, despite all the success, credits his teammates and says his time in Bloomington gave him lifelong relationships.

“My favorite memories are the guys I played with,” Zeller said. “Obviously, Vic, Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford, Derek Elston, and those guys are still some of my closest friends now. I had a great two years there and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”   

Zeller should have had a chance to reunite and play against Oladipo in his February 25th match-up against the Pacers. However, a bad back kept Oladipo sidelined for the game. Zeller said he is happy to see Oladipo back from his more serious ailment as he tries to lead his team to the postseason.

“I am just glad to see him back on the court,” he said. “Not tonight, but back from his knee injury, and I think he’s gearing up for the playoffs more than anything. I am glad he is doing well.”

Oladipo and Zeller’s friendship extends beyond the court, as their names will be felt for many generations with the Oladipo Zeller Legacy Lounge.

While Oladipo and Zeller have had NBA success, they are far from the only ones playing in the league, as no less than nine Hoosiers have seen action in games this season. Zeller currently sits third in scoring among current IU alums in the NBA at 11 points a game. He has also started nearly two-thirds of contests he has appeared in.

This is his seventh NBA season, all of which have been played with the Charlotte Hornets who drafted him fourth overall in the 2013 draft, two picks behind Oladipo.  

Zeller said he is proud to be one of many playing at the next level.

“It’s kind of cool to look back and see how many have come through Bloomington or even been from Indiana,” he said. “I think it says a lot about the pride of basketball here in Indiana.”

Despite being a proud Hoosier and native of the state, he says he has not had a chance to follow the current Hoosier team much due to his busy playing career.

“Unfortunately I haven’t been able to see too many games just because of our own schedule,” he said. “I try to follow as much as I can, but it’s obviously tough with our schedule.”

Despite this, he is always happy to be home in Indiana where he grew up — in Washington, in the southern part of the state. This allows him to see his close relatives when he returns.

“It’s always fun to come back here,” he said. “To play in front of a lot of friends, family, last night was fun to catch up with my parents, brother, a couple family members.”

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Mobile AL.- The names have partially changed, but the goal remains the same.

Despite losing eight players to the Major League Baseball Draft and three others to graduation, the hope of winning baseball in Bloomington has not subsided.

Over the last decade, the Hoosiers have been the Big Ten’s most consistent team — appearing in seven NCAA Tournaments, winning three Big Ten Championships, and making an appearance in the College World Series. They have also finished lower than sixth in the conference only once (a seventh place finish in 2011) and made the Big Ten Tournament 11 times in 12 years.

The program began in 1895 and is the oldest varsity sport on campus, but the recent success contrasts sharply with the previous 100+ years of play when the Hoosiers made one NCAA tournament ever, had just four Big Ten Championships, and went to the Big Ten Tournament only five times. 

Former IU catcher Bobby Segal, who played on the team just prior to all the recent success starting, said a broadened recruiting base led to the change in the program. 

“With the success that the IU program has had, just recruiting guys from the east coast to the west coast, north to south, it’s pretty obvious guys are coming from all over the country to come play baseball at Indiana University,” Segal told us when interviewed last July 13. “Back when I was playing, Bob Morgan definitely got guys from different parts of the country, but it was a little bit more Midwest recruiting.”

Former pitcher Kyle Hart, who played at Indiana University from 2012-2016 and is now in the Texas Rangers organization, saw the transition from the old Sembower Field to the new Bart Kaufman Field when the program reached new heights. He said the facility change was key.

“I remember practicing on Bart Kaufman when it was still being built, and I was like ‘man this place is really nice,’” Hart told us last June 14. “For us it was something that once I left IU, that’s when I truly realized what we had transitioned into.”      

Throughout this successful decade, IU has had three different coaches. Former coaches Tracy Smith and Chris Lemonis moved on to powerhouses Arizona State and Mississippi State following successful tenures as the Hoosier skipper. This led to Hoosier native Jeff Mercer taking the job, and he led the Cream and Crimson to a Big Ten title in his first season in the dugout.

Mercer is now faced with a team that requires reloading after the offseason personnel loseses, but he is confident the players he does have this season will be successful. 

“I love the club,” Mercer said. “The thing I like the most is the makeup, the mentality, the toughness, the camaraderie. I feel like we have a lot of the guys pulling on the same side of the rope, trying to do the same thing together, and have success as a team. When you have a group that is talented, new, and young certainly, but has great makeup, we have a chance to get out to compete and win.”   

Despite the player turnover, Baseball America projects the Hoosiers to finish fourth in the Big Ten and make the NCAA tournament yet again. This is mainly due to the return of sluggers Cole Barr, Elijah Dunham, and Grant Richardson as well as starters Drew Ashley and Jeremy Houston. Barr, Dunham and Richardson combined to hit 34 of an IU single-season record 95 home runs last year, and they will anchor the lineup this year.

Dunham, who led the team with a .310 average last year and is off to a blazing .476 average this year, echoed Mercer and said the team has more than enough to have another special season.

“I think we are just going to be as effective as last year,” Dunham said.  “We had a great team last year and I think we’ve got a great team this year. A lot of guys put in hard work, we’re really disciplined at the plate as a unit, and I think we are just going to have another good year.”

The pitching staff lost its entire weekend rotation heading into this season as the trio of Pauly Milto, Tanner Gordon, and Andrew Saalfrank all were drafted and signed major league contracts. This will require the previous season’s weekday starters Tommy Sommer and Gabe Bierman to assume prominent roles as the leaders of the staff. Both were successful with sub-four earned run averages at the back of the rotation. 

Early returns have been promising, especially for Bierman, who has a 2.31 ERA in two starts so far. Also, little-used Braydon Tucker is now featured prominently in the rotation and shows great potential with a sub-one era in his two starts.

Bierman said the adjustment to his new role has required additional commitment. 

“It’s definitely a lot more work,” Bierman said. “More pitches of course. Coming in for three innings and just shutting down guys is totally different than coming in for a start. It just matters how you go along with the game. You get in a groove and it’s a lot easier to fool hitters.”

Also figuring to feature prominently in Bierman’s old role this year is McCade Brown, who struggled mightily last year in limited action. However, he has seen dramatic improvement this season closing out two wins this year. Mercer said he had seen an obvious growth in Brown. 

“McCade’s a different guy top to bottom,” he said. “He’s worked real hard on his body. He is such a big man. That takes time for young guys to be able to control themselves when they are that big. We have great confidence in him. He’s been one of our more dominant pitchers throughout the fall and the early winter. I have 100% confidence and he his going to do a great job.”

So far, the returns have been extremely promising for the young Hoosiers, who sit at 4-2 after six games. This includes a win at a highly ranked LSU team on the road the first weekend of the season. The second weekend was successful as well, with a win against a ranked South Alabama team in their home stadium as part of a tournament in Mobile, Alabama. The team also has victories over Tennessee Martin and Sienna in this tournament.

The schedule will continue to be extremely tough, as they will face highly-ranked Coastal Carolina, Ole Miss, and Louisville as well as San Diego, Kentucky, and an Illinois State team that beat the Hoosiers in the NCAA tournament last year. Big Ten play also features series against Michigan, who nearly became the first Big Ten team to win a national championship in 60 years, as well as Ohio State and Nebraska, who figure to be prominent players in the conference.

Mercer said as long as the Hoosiers believe in themselves success will come this season.

“We just have to go out and trust ourselves and be able to play with a ton of confidence,” he said.

Indianapolis – Tom Crean’s 2015 recruiting class was not a highly rated one, but all the players in it have found their way to the NBA, including OG Anunoby, who scored a career-high 25 points on February 10 as his defending champion Toronto Raptors won their 15th straight game.

Indiana’s 2015 class — which also included Thomas Bryant (Wizards) and Juwan Morgan (Jazz) — is Indiana’s only class since 247sports.com began tracking recruiting rankings that has seen all the members move on to the NBA. And the class ranked just 32nd collectively in the country at the time in 2015.

While Bryant was hyped and ranked no. 20 nationally in the class, Morgan was ranked #117 and Anunoby was even lower at #294.

Anunoby said he is happy to be see an entire class play at the highest level.

“It’s cool, we’re all excited,” Anunoby said. “We all like the NBA so it’s cool.”

Morgan said he is happy to follow the path of his former IU teammates Anunoby and Bryant.

“It speaks to the level of development that’s happening at IU and the amount of talent that comes out each and every year,” Morgan told assemblycall.com when interviewed about his IU career on November 27.

Bryant said despite his success, he is still just attempting to carve out his niche at the pinnacle of basketball.

“I’m still working to try to make it big in the NBA,” he told assemblycall.com when interviewed on November 6. “Always have a real great work ethic. Just always try to work as hard as you can day in and day out, and always believe in yourself.”

For Anunoby, he was part of the Big Ten Title team his freshman season at IU along with Bryant and Morgan. After a slow start to the season for the team and himself personally, Anunoby came into his own in Big Ten play averaging 5.8 points during conference games (up from 4.8 overall). His biggest contributions, of course, came on the defensive end and Anunoby’s emergence was pivotal in helping to secure the conference crown.

Anunoby said coming out on top in the Big Ten was a season highlight for him.

“Just winning the Big Ten. That was my favorite moment,” he said.

His sophomore season saw his scoring up to 11.1 per game. However, opposite of his freshman year, the team started strong with wins over highly ranked Kansas and North Carolina before tailing off in Big Ten play and missing the NCAA tournament.

Anunoby also dealt with injuries all year and played in just 16 of 35 games, missing three games in December following a knee injury. He then suffered a serious knee injury against Penn State that caused him to miss the rest of the season.

Anunoby believes the season may have had a different outcome for the team had he not been dealt these setbacks.

“I think we would have made the tournament if I didn’t get hurt, but that’s what happened,” he said.

Despite the injury, Anunoby still shot up draft boards and declared for the NBA the following year, where he was selected 23^rd overall by the Raptors.

He said working back from the setback was trying, but very rewarding, as he got his pro basketball career started.

“Recovering from the injury was a lot of hard work but it was worth it,” he said.

Anunoby continues to play a significant role for Raptors. He has also become just the seventh former Hoosier with an NBA title and the first since IU great Isiah Thomas in 1990.

Anunoby has a career average of 7.4 points and has upped his scoring average each season while starting 61% of the games in his NBA career.

He said contributing to a championship team has been a great experience.

“It’s always fun to win so I enjoy that a lot,” he said.

He returned to Indiana on February 7 to play the Pacers in Indianapolis. In doing so, he became the first former Hoosier player to play against Pacer star and former IU player Victor Oladipo during the 2019-2020 season following Oladipo’s return from his year long injury absence.

Anunoby said playing against Oladipo was a cool experience.

“It (was) fun to play against him,” he said.

For the game Anunoby scored 16 points while Oladipo added 15.

Indianapolis IN-He’s not the most celebrated Hoosier, but he nonetheless would not trade his time at IU away.

Former Hoosier Noah Vonleh played one season for the Hoosiers in 2013-2014 and had positive experiences donning the Cream and Crimson in the short time he did.

“The whole college experience was great,” he said. “Coming in with that freshman class, we were pretty talented. I just loved going to Indiana University. Indiana breeds basketball players and I just love the fact that they worship basketball so it was just a great environment playing in Assembly Hall.”

Vonleh ended up at IU following a long recruiting process with former Indiana coach Tom Crean and former assistant Kenny Johnson, who he praised for helping him work up to his potential.

“Still talk to (Crean and Johnson) every once in a while,” he said. “They pushed me to the limit when I was at IU and it was a great experience overall.”

Despite a season that had its ups and downs, one thing that stood out was playing with former Hoosier star and current fellow NBA player Yogi Ferrell, who along with Vonleh were the two leading scorers for that year.

“Yogi’s a great point guard,” he said. “He can really play-make, he can score the basketball. People take his size for granted but he is a hell of a basketball player and it was a great time playing with him here at Indiana.”

While Crean was known for his team’s offensive prowess, with four of his last six teams finishing in the top eight in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency, Vonleh’s team was an exception as they finished outside the top 100 in offense — the third worst in the Crean era. However, like current squads under current Indiana coach Archie Miller, Vonleh’s team was top 40 in defense, which was second-best during Crean’s nine-year tenure as Hoosier coach.

Vonleh said he has nothing but praise for Miller and the job he is doing with the Hoosier defense and thinks he is the right man to lead the program.

“Archie’s a hell of a coach,” he said. “He’s gonna figure it out. He’s gonna recruit the right guys to come in there and fit into their system.”

During his season as a Hoosier, Vonleh averaged 11.3 points and nine rebounds. However, his team finished with a disappointing 17-15 record. This followed two seasons where former IU stars and current fellow lottery picks Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller led the Hoosiers to a Big Ten Championship, two Sweet 16’s, and their highest rankings since Bobby Knight roamed the sidelines.

Vonleh said he was happy with his season as a Hoosier despite the struggles, but does imagine what it would have been like if he had been added to the elite 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 rosters.

“I am happy with the year I played,” he said. “I watched Cody and Vic the year before. It would have been fun to play with those guys. It would have been fun and interesting to see me, Vic, Cody, and Yogi playing together. That would have been a fun team to watch.”

After his season as a Hoosier, Vonleh departed for the NBA draft, where he was the ninth pick of the Charlotte Hornets. He has since played with five more organizations (Portland Trail Blazers, Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks, Minnesota Timberwolves and now Denver Nuggets) with a career average of five points a game in his sixth season.

Vonleh is content to see where his NBA path continues to take him.

“I’ve been on a few teams,” he said. “I’m just going with the journey and seeing where it takes me. I hope to be in this league as long as I want.”

More than anything though Vonleh, who measures 6-10, had advice for any future Hoosier big man who is an NBA prospect.

“Just continue to work hard,” he said. “Listen to your coaching staff and the sky’s the limit.”