The Indiana basketball program had significant holes to fill in its roster, especially in the backcourt. Three perimeter commitments later, and Indiana has done just that and added major talent at the guard position.
Indiana first landed Washington State guard Myles Rice, then Stanford guard Kanaan Carlyle and then, most recently, Luke Goode from Illinois. All three have different skillsets and will have different roles this upcoming season, but one may be slightly more critical than the others.
That could be Myles Rice. The 6-foot-3 point guard comes to Indiana after leading a Pac-12 Freshman of the Year campaign a season ago which also saw him land on the All-Pac-12 First Team.
Heading into the offseason there are numerous national analysts who think Indiana’s pickup of Rice could be one of the most significant additions around the entire country.
For Field of 68 co-founder and analyst Rob Dauster, he thinks Rice has ‘All-American potential’.
“We’ll see how (Mike) Woodson puts this all together but Indiana absolutely has put together a roster that will set the expectation level quite high,” Dauster wrote on social media. “I think Myles Rice has All-American potential.”
As a freshman, Rice averaged 14.8 points, 3.1 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.6 steals per game helping lead Washington State to an NCAA Round of 32 appearance and 25 wins — the most for the Cougars since the 2007-08 season.
Rice was also named a 2024 Kyle Macy National Freshman All-America Team honoree.
“Myles is a savvy, downhill guard that really succeeds in pick-and-roll situations,” Woodson said of Rice. “He is a three-level scorer that makes the right play consistently, whether that is getting to the rim or finding the open man. He is going to be a huge help for our ballclub.”
Rice is a terrific scorer off of the dribble and can create shots for himself using ball screens or creation on his own. He has great length and quickness to allow him to get into the lane and finish at the rim with great effectiveness. He scores .800 points per possession when he is the ball handler in a screen and roll. He scores 1.15 points per possession in transition with his quickness. While Rice is not a great spot up shooter, he has the ability to be a streaky perimeter player.
While he wasn’t put in a full isolation setting often — only six percent of his possessions — he scored 1.15 points per possession which ranked in the 89th percentile. But, his ability to break opponents down off of the dribble is something Indiana was missing a season ago.
Rice can make a living at the rim and did so last year with 37 percent of his field goal attempts came at the rim last year, finishing with a 63 percent rate.
Rice’s ability to make plays for his teammates is an underrated part of his game as well. He finished last year with an assist rate of 22.7 percent, eighth in the Pac-12.
With talent like Oumar Ballo, Malik Reneau, Mackenzie Mgbako, Trey Galloway, and the aforementioned Carlyle and Goode, there’s no question Rice will be the ‘head of the snake’ — as Woodson likes to call it.
He has all of the talent and no with the talent around him, Rice could very well see his game elevate to an All-American level.
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