My Two Cents: Hoosiers Win 'Trade' in Geronimo-Walker Deal

Indiana's basketball roster has been a revolving door during the transfer portal window, with three players gone and three more coming in. On Saturday, Indiana added Miami's Anthony Walker on the same day that former Hoosier Jordan Geronimo committed to Maryland. Indiana wins that trade. My column.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The transfer portal and NIL as a package deal has changed college basketball in a dramatic way. The pendulum needed to swing more for player choice, but it's probably swung too hard, and too far. 

Last season, only nine NCAA schools out of 356 didn't have a transfer come or go. This year, it will likely be the same, or worse. The portal is affecting every single school, from coast to coast, and a thousand or more kids will find new homes — or at least they're trying to.

Indiana is right in the middle of all of that, too. Players are coming and going like crazy, and it's all about act and react. Or is it the other way around?

There are no trades in college basketball, but there might as well be. It feels that way on Saturday, really. It seems like the Hoosiers have basically traded junior forward Jordan Geronimo for Miami transfer Anthony Walker.

NEWS: Miami transfer Anthony Walker has committed to Indiana, he tells @On3sports.

Story: https://t.co/dcGwDhcGuL pic.twitter.com/wsIbObLre2

— Joe Tipton (@TiptonEdits) April 29, 2023

Walker, a 6-foot-9 forward for a Hurricanes team that knocked Indiana out of the NCAA Tournament, committed to the Hoosiers on Saturday. He'll add depth on the front line behind returner Malik Reneau and incoming transfers Kel'el Ware (Oregon) and Payton Sparks (Ball State).

Geronimo, who entered the portal earlier in the month, announced his commitment on Saturday, too. He's headed to Maryland, moving back out east but staying in the Big Ten.

That definitely feels like a swap to me. And I think Indiana won this one.

Look, you've heard me say this before. I really like Jordan Geronimo as a kid. He's got a great personality and he's fun to be around. But if the goal is to win Big Ten titles and more, that would never happen if he needed to be a 30-minute-a-night starter. He's a terrific athlete, but he's just not that good of a basketball player.

I've always said that Geronimo is not much more than a ''vertical'' athlete. He can jump through the roof, and we saw very brief glimpses of that at times, getting big rebounds and dunks and the occasional wild blocked shot.

But I've also said repeatedly, too, that he's really not a very good horizontal athlete. When he had to guard guys on the perimeter, he got burned often on dribble drives. His first step was very slow, and keeping up with quicker guys was tough. That's really odd for someone who's so athletic north and south.

He also wasn't much of a shooter more than a few feet away from the basket. He shot 26.3 percent from three-point range this year, and was a career 52.3 free throw shooter. I argued constantly on social media with a lot of people who thought he should be playing small forward instead of Miller Kopp. That was foolish. His ball-handling skills were below average and he struggled to guard guys out on the floor. He was an offensive liability out there, too. 

During his three years at Indiana, he played 82 games and scored 13 or more points only three times. He had some promising moments as a sophomore, but was a big disappointment this year when many people thought he was ready to take a step forward. He didn't. So it was no big deal to me, really, when he decided to transfer.

The Hoosiers lost forwards Trayce Jackson-Davis (2,258 career points) and Race Thompson (997) to graduation, but Mike Woodson and his staff have done a nice job with bigs in the transfer portal. The 7-foot Ware is a former five-star recruit who will benefit greatly from a fresh start in Bloomington. Sparks had a nice two years at Ball State and seems primed to be a factor at the next level. And Reneau, who got a great education as a freshman watching Jackson-Davis, is set for a breakout 2023-24 campaign. I'm expecting big things from him.

Adding Walker gives Indiana more versatility. He's got size and length, and is a good rebounder and defender. Don't get caught up in his numbers as a reserve, because Miami recruited over him, and they played four guards — as we know — much more this year.

He's a backup forward, much like Geronimo, but he'll do more for Indiana next year than Geronimo would have. That's a win on this trade in my book. He gives Woodson a lot more flexibility with substitutions and rotations.

But we don't really know until we see him on the floor, of course, and that's the stressful part of this new transfer portal era. Change is inevitable with the roster every year now. You rebuild teams on the fly, practically overnight. 

Jim Larranaga, Walker's former coach at Miami and a sagacious 71-year-old, summed up the portal perfectly during the NCAA Tournament.

“This is like speed dating. It’s like going on match.com. I have never been on match.com, so don’t want anybody to get the wrong impression,” he said with a laugh. "But the portal starts basically now (in early April) in this past week or so, and it’s only going to last until May. You only have weeks or even days to decide on kids, or on kids deciding on you. When you recruit high school kids, it starts when they’re sophomores or juniors in high school, and you recruit them for a year or two. You get to know them. Now you've really got act fast.''

It's the same for everyone unfortunately. Indiana has had success in the portal because assistant coaches Kenya Hunter and Yasir Rosemond have had previous recruiting contacts with a lot of these kids. That helps break the ice, especially in situations where contacts and campus visit invitations all have to happen very quickly. The Hoosiers have done a good job of that. They have three portal commits already and have room for two more, with the targets being guards and/or wing players.

That's five of 13 scholarships — nearly 40 percent of your roster — recruited in a matter of weeks. Toss in the two new freshmen — guards Jakai Newton and Gabe Cupps — and more than half of the team is brand new.

Crazy, isn't it?

That's not really good for basketball in the long run, I don't think. The rules need some tweaking for sure. But it is what it is right now, and you have to react.

I think the Hoosiers have done a very good job of that so far, and there's still more to come.

And then we wait until November — six long damn months. Just doesn't seem fair, does it?

Related stories on Indiana basketball

• MIAMI'S WALKER COMMITS TO INDIANA: After four seasons at Miami, 6-foot-9 forward Anthony Walker announced Saturday that he's transferring to Indiana. Coach Mike Woodson has rebuilt Indiana's front court through the transfer portal with Walker, Kel'el Ware from Oregon and Payton Sparks from Ball State. CLICK HERE
• GERONIMO TRANSFERS TO MARYLAND: Former Indiana forward Jordan Geronimo announced Saturday that he's transferring from Indiana to Maryland to play for coach Kevin Willard. CLICK HERE
• INDIANA PURSUING JORDAN DINGLE: Indiana basketball reached out to Penn guard transfer Jordan Dingle on Friday. Dingle averaged 23.4 points as a junior in 2022-23 en route to winning Ivy League Player of the Year. CLICK HERE
• MGBAKO TO VISIT INDIANA: After decommitting from Duke, Mackenzie Mgbako, a five-star forward in the class of 2023, will visit Saint John's, Kansas, Indiana and Louisville. CLICK HERE
• JOHNSON GRANTED SIXTH YEAR: After missing most of the 2022-23 season with a broken foot, Indiana senior point guard Xavier Johnson was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA on Wednesday. CLICK HERE
• TAKEAWAYS FROM BIG TEN SCHEDULE RELEASE: A lot will change by the time the 2023-24 Big Ten basketball season starts, but here are a few takeaways from Indiana's home and road opponents. CLICK HERE
• BIG TEN OPPONENTS ANNOUNCED: The Big Ten conference released the full 20-game conference slate for the 2023-24 Big Ten men's basketball season. Dates, times and television information will be announced at a later date. CLICK HERE