My Two Cents: One Year Enough to Make Hood-Schifino a Hoosier Forever

Jalen Hood-Schifino's time in Bloomington was short, playing just one year at Indiana before turning pro. He's at the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago this week, and scouts and front-office folks are saying good things. He loved his time at Indiana, and he's excited to move on and see what's next.

CHICAGO — Everywhere you turn at the swanky Marriott Marquis hotel in Chicago, dozens of NBA scouts and front-office folks wander by, as do dozens of future pros here at the NBA Draft Combine.

Indiana's Jalen Hood-Schifino, who just finished his freshman year and is now on to the pros, fits right in as well.

He's a one-and-done player about to hear his name called next month during the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft. The ''one'' was pretty good — he was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year and helped the Hoosiers beat Purdue twice — but he's nowhere near done.

In fact, the 19-year-old is really just getting started at chasing his hoop dreams.

"This has been awesome. Really something,'' he said to me during an interview in the Marriott lobby on Monday night. "It's just great being around it all, and we're going to have a chance to talk to a lot of teams this week. It's all a lot of fun and, obviously, I'm really excited to see how it all plays out.

"I'm ready. For sure.''

The Pittsburgh, Pa., native who played his final two years of high school basketball at the prestigious Montverde Academy in Florida, got measured on Monday but didn't compete in any of the skills drills. No need, really. Most projected first-rounder don't participate, and Hood-Schifino fits in that group.

His one year at Indiana was loaded with a lot of highlight-reel moments. He was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year, and was named Freshman of the Week four times. He was also named Big Ten Player of the Week after his 35-point performance in the win over Purdue in West Lafayette.

He's just 19 years old, hitting the big 2-0 on June 19, and feels like he's ready to dive into his professional career. He started all 32 games he played for the Hoosiers, missing three December games — including losses to Rutgers and Arizona — that turned out to be huge. 

His numbers on the season were impressive, averaging 13.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 0.8 steals per game. He was second on the team in points and assists behind Trayce Jackson-Davis, and is fourth in program history for total assists (117) in a season by a freshman.

Hood-Schifino measured just 6-foot, 4.25 inches and 216.6 pounds on Monday. His wingspan was 6-foot-10.25. He was listed at 6-6 and 213 on Indiana's roster a year ago, but it's critical to remember that the NBA measures players without shoes while colleges usually don't. It's apples and oranges.

And in the pros, all games are played with shoes.

(Teammate Trayce Jackson-Davis, by the way, was measured at 6-foot-8.25, down a tick from the 6-9 Indiana called him. He weighed 240.4 pounds and had a 7-foot-1 wingspan).

Make no mistake. Jalen loved his year in Bloomington. He came there with a great reputation, winning two high school national championships, and was the No. 26-ranked player in the Class of 2022. There were some concerns about his perimeter shooting — and there was no guarantee that he was a one-and-done, — and how it would translate to the college game, but he worked on it, endlessly.

"He's always in the gym, and I mean always,'' fellow Indiana point guard Xavier Johnson told me last season. ''He puts in the work because he's driven, man. He doesn't just want to be good, he wants to be great.''

He and Johnson were a great pair together early in the season. The Hoosiers started the season 7-0, and had huge wins at Xavier and over North Carolina early. But they played only 6 minutes and 9 seconds together the rest of the season, with Hood-Schifino missing three games with a back injury and then Johnson breaking his foot on Dec. 17 at Kansas and requiring what turned out to be season-ending surgery.

So the point guard duties fell squarely on Hood-Schifino's shoulder. That slow-growth freshman learning curve? It was completely out the window, mostly because the Hoosiers didn't have anyone else after Johnson went down. They struggled early in January trying to figure it out, but then won 11 of their last 15 Big Ten games. Trey Galloway filled in at the point at times, but that's not a natural position for him. There were no other point guards on the roster.

It was all on the kid.

Hood-Schifino had some ups and downs, and a couple of tough shooting nights, but they never affected him. He just went back into the gym and kept working. The same kid who went 1-for-14 shooting in a loss at Maryland was completely unstoppable in scoring 35 points at Purdue, a game that will absolutely remain in Hoosiers lore for decades to come.

When Indiana's coaches recruited him, they told him over and over that this would be his team to run at some point. He had to be the guy and Woodson admits that he's very tough on point guards, the guys he trusts to run his team.

It was no different with Hood-Schifino, and he responded. What he was told was what he got, and he improved his draft stock immensely during the final two or three months of the season.

He's ready to go for sure now, because he put in the work.

"For me, the coaching staff, you hear them talk and they kind of lay out a plan for you and (at Indiana), everything is genuine,'' Hood-Schifino said recently. "For me, when I met the coaches and built a relationship with them, everything they told me before I got there and got to campus, its was that. For me, it was great.

''A lot of players that I talked to before coming to college they told me ‘Yeah the coaches are nice before you get there and as soon as you g t there they are A-holes, but I didn’t experience that. So for me, it was great.''

Jackson-Davis, who chose to stay four years at Indiana and left Bloomington as the school's No. 3 all-time leading scorer and No. 1 in both rebounds and blocked shots, said that Hood-Schifino was ''the best player I've ever played with.'' He wasn't wrong. There was a hefty drop-off in talent on Indiana's roster after those two during the Hoosiers' 23-12 season. 

This 1-2 punch certainly caught the eyes of NBA folks, too. Both of them have moved up dramatically on draft boards. Hood-Schifino is now considered a mid-first-round pick, up an easy 10-15 spots from the preseason. Jackson-Davis has moved up, too, and will fall somewhere between 25 and 40, more than likely, depending on the right team and fit.

His year at Bloomington fell short of expectations a bit, with no Big Ten titles and an NCAA Tournament run that probably ended a game or two too soon.

But there were many memorable moments for him as well. The Purdue sweep, the big shots at the end of the win at Michigan, the 20-point first half against Ohio State and that wild 33-point game against Northwestern during a wild second-half comeback. that came up just short.

Indiana forward Malik Reneau (5) came to Indiana in a large part because of a strong recruiting pitch from high school teammate Jalen Hood-Schifino. (Alex Martin/USA TODAY Sports

He'll also be remembered, of course, for being a heck of a recruiter. Indiana doesn't get Malik Reneau, his Montverde teammate, without Hood-Schifino's help. Reneau had some nice freshman moments playing in Jackson-Davis' shadow, and I'm expecting huge things from him in 2023-24.

Indiana is aggressively recruiting more Montverde players, and Hood-Schifino is in their ears all the time, too. Same with other big-time recruits. He shouts from the rooftops about how great it is at Indiana, and that's never going to stop. His recruiting pitch earlier this week went viral on Twitter.

‘’Our coaches do a great job recruiting guys. Me personally, if I’m a player, I don’t see how you take a visit to Indiana and not want to go there,'' Hood-Schifino said in a video tweet. "For one, just the culture there, obviously it’s basketball, basketball, basketball and they love their Hoosiers.

"As far as other recruits, I feel like I talk to certain guys and have relationships with a lot of guys but I think if you just look at the year I had and the confidence the coaches had in me, I think if they look at that, they can think, wow. I can kind of be in those shoes and I can hopefully do the same thing.’’

Thank you my guy! Love you! Who’s Next? ⚪️🔴⚪️🔴 pic.twitter.com/jOPwqh93Sb

— Yasir Rosemond (@Coach_Ya) May 16, 2023

I talked to a few NBA folks about Hood-Schifino on Monday and there was consensus on there being ''a lot to like'' about his game. He can score at all three levels, which is always a huge plus at the pro level. He's a big guard — in shoes — and he'll learn quickly about how to play defense in the league. 

For every kid turning pro, a lot of time is all about the fit. Several mock drafts came out after Tuesday night's NBA Draft Lottery now that the draft order is set. ESPN's Jonathan Givony, who is someone I have a lot of respect for by knowing BOTH the college and NBA game, had Hood-Schifino going No. 15 in the first rond to the Atlanta Hawks.

That's a good fit, being paired with All-Star Trae Young in the backcourt, but also not having to carry a heavy load right out of the gate. Last year, that No. 15 pick — Duke's Mark Williams to Charlotte — was worth a four-year guaranteed contract valued at $18 million.

 Here's what Givony said:

"The Hawks are heavily reliant on the shot-creation prowess of Trae Young, whose standing is somewhat of an open question after a tumultuous season that saw changes in the front office and coaching staff. 

"With that in mind, adding another lead guard to the team could make sense, making the live-dribble passing, shot-making and all-around aggressiveness Hood-Schifino brings attractive. He's likely not ready to be handed the keys to an NBA offense anytime soon considering the huge swings in effectiveness we saw this season, but his upside is clearly significant for a team that can afford to be patient with his development.''

The draft is June 22, a two-round affair. It's a night where dreams come true for kids, and that certainly includes Hood-Schifino. He'll look forward to his big night, with great memories of Bloomington etched in his mind forever.

His time was short at Indiana, but make no mistake. He'll be a Hoosier forever.

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• ZACH EDEY TALKS DECISION: Purdue center Zach Edey sat down with publisher Tom Brew and talked about whether to turn pro or return to the Boilermakers in an exclusive interview. Here's the story. CLICK HERE
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