Jack’s Take: Where Can Transfer Center Dallas James Help Indiana?

Indiana officially filled its 13th and final scholarship spot on Wednesday with South Carolina State transfer center Dallas James. Here’s how the 7-footer fits on coach Mike Woodson’s roster, and where he could help the 2024-25 Hoosiers.

Jack Ankony | Jul 31, 2024

Indiana basketball officially announced the addition of South Carolina State transfer center Dallas James on Tuesday. / John E. Moore III/GettyImages

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Indiana Hoosiers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana wrapped up basketball summer workouts on Friday, but it wasn’t done building the 2024-25 roster just yet.

On Tuesday, the program announced the addition of Dallas James, a center who played the last four seasons at South Carolina State in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC).

Was it a flashy, high-impact addition?

No, but it doesn’t hurt to have another 7-footer on the roster, especially when Indiana appeared content to enter the season with 12 scholarship players and one scholarship unfilled. James joins the Hoosiers with one season of eligibility remaining, so he doesn’t impact roster flexibility for future seasons.

Anything James can add this season is a bonus, and there’s no real downside to bringing him on board. It’s possible the 13th scholarship would have been better utilized on a 3-point shooter, but there’s already competition for minutes at the guard and wing positions, where someone will be the odd man out. And no team plays a 13-man rotation.

“Dallas is an incredibly intelligent young man that will provide us with some depth across our front line," Woodson said in a news release. "He is a tall kid with long arms that can contest and alter shots at the rim. He comes from an NBA background with his father spending a decade in the league and we are excited to bring the James family to Bloomington.”

So with this addition, coach Mike Woodson’s roster has been finalized from a scholarship standpoint. Indiana lost Xavier Johnson, Anthony Walker, Kel’el Ware, CJ Gunn, Kaleb Banks and Payton Sparks. It replaced them with transfers Myles Rice (Washington State), Kanaan Carlyle (Stanford), Oumar Ballo (Arizona), Luke Goode (Illinois), Langdon Hatton (Bellarmine) and James (South Carolina State), plus five-star freshman Bryson Tucker.

The seven-man class is ranked No. 14 in the nation and No. 3 in the Big Ten, per 247Sports. And along with several key Hoosiers returning for another year, it’s a big reason Indiana is ranked No. 18 in ESPN’s way-too-early preseason college basketball rankings after missing the NCAA Tournament last year in Woodson’s third season.

The addition of James won’t move the needle in terms of Indiana’s preseason outlook on a national or Big Ten scale. Those moves were made months ago, when Woodson brought in top-ranked transfer Ballo to play center and upgraded the Hoosiers’ guard play with Rice and Carlyle. Woodson built a roster in which every player could realistically compete for minutes, so playing time could be difficult to come by for James.

But Indiana’s 2024-25 roster is different from any of Woodson’s prior groups in at least one way that is especially relevant to James. Trayce Jackson-Davis averaged over 32 minutes and as much as 34.5 in his final three seasons at Indiana. Ware played 32.2 minutes per game as the starting center last season.

Indiana’s new starting center is Oumar Ballo, who averaged 26 minutes per game last season and 27.6 the year before. That’s a result of his career 56.4% free throw shooting, which can make it risky to play him down the stretch of close games, as well as his conditioning. So assuming Ballo carries a similar workload at Indiana, that leaves open minutes each game that Woodson previously assigned to his starting center.

Those minutes could be absorbed in a variety of ways. Woodson has mentioned playing Goode and Mackenzie Mgbako at power forward. And while Malik Reneau is more of a power forward, he’s capable of playing spot minutes at center when Ballo needs a breather, especially in matchups against smaller teams.

Indiana also added Hatton, a 6-foot-10 center who averaged 10.5 points, 7.1 rebounds and 0.8 blocks per game last season at Bellarmine. A career 32.7% 3-point shooter, Hatton can also stretch the floor.

There are two logical paths to minutes for James. If there’s an injury to Ballo, Reneau or Hatton, that immediately thrusts James into a meaningful role and makes his addition more valuable. The same is true if any of those three suffer from foul trouble, which we’ve seen with Reneau in each of his first two seasons at Indiana. And just a few years ago, backup center Michael Durr provided an important 24 minutes off the bench in a home win over Purdue when Jackson-Davis was in foul trouble.

At South Carolina State, James averaged 0.8 points, 1.3 rebounds and 0.7 blocks per game during the 2023-24 season. He started 14 games and played in 26, but he logged just 7.2 minutes per game. His most statistically productive season came in 2022-23, when he provided 2.2 points, 2.4 rebounds and 0.9 blocks per game. Across his four-year career, James shot 56.2% from the field, 51.5% from the free throw line and did not attempt a 3-point shot.

While James may be able to occasionally grab a rebound, block a shot or score near the basket, it’s likely he’s most valuable in practice settings. As a 7-footer with four years of college experience, it will be important for James to battle and prepare Ballo for physical Big Ten opponents.

With this move, Indiana’s busy offseason of roster retooling is officially complete. We’ll first see James and the new Hoosiers take the court on Nov. 1 in an exhibition game against Marian University, an NAIA program in Indianapolis which is now coached by Pat Knight, the son of Indiana’s Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight.

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