Indiana’s frontcourt makeover took another big step this offseason, and Samet Yigitoglu looks built to matter right away.
After a first year under Darian DeVries that exposed how much size the Hoosiers were missing inside, Indiana went into the offseason with a clear mission: get bigger, get tougher on the glass and stop giving opponents so many second chances. In Big Ten play, IU finished 14th in block percentage, 16th in offensive rebounding percentage and 10th in defensive rebounding percentage.
That’s why the addition of Alabama transfer Aiden Sherrell drew so much attention. And it’s why the arrival of Yigitoglu, a 7-foot-2, 270-pound center from SMU, matters so much to what DeVries is trying to build.
Yigitoglu spent the last two seasons with the Mustangs under Andy Enfield and steadily produced. As a freshman, he averaged 10 points, 6.2 rebounds, a blocked shot and an assist in 24.5 minutes per game. Last season, on an NCAA tournament team, he bumped those numbers to 10.7 points, 7.9 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.3 blocked shots in 28.9 minutes per game.
The expectation is that Sherrell and Yigitoglu will start together, giving Indiana one of the biggest frontcourts in the Big Ten next winter.
“In practice right now, the coaches are always trying to put me on the court with Aiden so we can play with two bigs on the court,” Yigitoglu said last week after an open practice at Cook Hall.
“It’s great. He’s a threat from the 3-pointers.
So it’s so easy to play with him because teams are, when we play during practice, the teams are just confused because he can hit a roll or he can even hit a pop. So he’s good at both.
It’s so easy to play with Aiden.”
Fans will get their first look at that pairing on Wednesday night when IU, representing the United States, hosts Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf from Canada in an exhibition at Assembly Hall at 7 p.m. ET.
Yigitoglu won’t be on the trip to Lima, Peru, this month for the FISU America Games because he is not eligible as a non-American citizen, but he is expected to travel with the team. His presence has already made an impression in summer practices, where his constant smile and upbeat energy have stood out.
“It comes from my teammates,” Yigitoglu explained. “Because everybody’s happy, everybody’s laughing, everybody’s cheering for each other.”
Now in his third season of college basketball, the 22-year-old is trying to take another step forward in Bloomington. His field goal percentage jumped from 53.5 percent as a freshman to 62.8 percent last season, and he cut his fouls per 40 minutes from 5.1 to 4.5. That number still needs to keep trending down if he’s going to stay on the floor more often.
On the court, Yigitoglu gives Indiana a lot of what it was missing. He finishes well in the post when he gets deep position, sets strong screens, passes well from the perimeter and high post, and can create easy points by crashing the offensive glass. He doesn’t demand touches, either.
“I’m just trying to make plays for others and to go get my own stuff in the paint,” Yigitoglu said of his role.
When he entered the transfer portal last spring, Yigitoglu committed to Indiana before he ever visited campus. He pointed to the coaching staff’s patience and the way they laid out the plan for his development as a major reason he chose the Hoosiers.
“They’re patient,” he said. “They were so patient and they explained the whole story like what they want to do next year and how they want to develop me and how they want to get me better for the next level, which is the NBA.
“SMU taught me a lot of things about college basketball. You know, it was great two years out there, but I just had to move on from there because if you want to do big things, sometimes you got to change up something or just got to get to another level. And then Indiana was like that for me.”
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