Indiana men’s basketball report: Hoosiers schedule visits with two portal prospects

Indiana is off to a busy start to its portal season, scheduling visits with a pair of guards in Connor Hickman and Leland Walker, per Jeff Rabjohns of peegs.com. Both players played their high school basketball in the state of Indiana.

Walker has been on Indiana’s radar basically since day one of the portal, when he announced he’d be leaving Eastern Kentucky. He played at North Central and had interest from Indiana out of high school before committing to Eastern Kentucky.

He averaged 9.4 points per game as a freshman before making a leap to 15.4 points per game as a sophomore. His assist numbers also jumped from 2.7 to 4.1 in that period while seeing only a small increase in turnover numbers.

Hickman, a Bloomington South prospect, played three seasons at Bradley, where he’s seen starting minutes since his freshman season. As a junior, Hickman averaged 14.5 points per game on 40.2% shooting from deep.

Indiana seems to be casting a wider net in its portal efforts this year compared to last season, when it focused on mostly transfers from other high major schools. This change in approach comes after a number of players, like Marcus Domask at Illinois and Lance Jones at Purdue, made the leap to high major schools and had an immediate impact.