Indiana Hoosiers forward Miller Kopp (12) reaches for the ball against the Miami (Fl) Hurricanes during the second half at MVP Arena. Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

Best Indiana Men’s Basketball Players Of The 2020s So Far: No. 10 Miller Kopp

Originally posted on Indiana Hoosiers on SI
By Todd Golden | Last updated Jun 7, 2025 1:16 PM ET

Among many other things, the transfer era of college basketball has made roles more defined for players who come into a program from elsewhere.

The notion of a player growing into a role or branching their game out as they evolve is largely disappearing from the college game. Why wait for a player to develop when you can shop in the transfer portal and quickly find what you need?

How much this might hurt the overall depth of skill in college basketball is an open question, but that’s how rosters have been constructed since the early 2020s. Among the players who represent this phenomenon is guard Miller Kopp.

Kopp is in many ways the template for the modern college basketball player. His career arc would not likely exist in any other eras.

For one, he transferred within the Big Ten Conference, coming to Indiana in 2021 after three seasons at Northwestern. It is not an unprecedented move – Lawrence Funderburke went from Indiana to Ohio State in the early 1990s – but Kopp was the first to do it without having to sit out a year (or two within a conference) as players had to do in the recent past.

Kopp was brought in by coach Mike Woodson to play a specific role – spread the floor by being a perimeter scoring threat. With Trayce Jackson-Davis, Race Thompson, Parker Stewart and Xavier Johnson in the starting lineup, this was Kopp’s role.

In 2022, Kopp converted 36.1% from 3-point range, but averaged just six points per game. Kopp wasn’t as efficient as Indiana would have hoped for in that 21-14 season, but Kopp improved in his final season in 2023.

Though he had a career-low usage rate at 11.7% in 2023, Kopp was more productive as a scorer. He averaged 8.1 points as his 3-point accuracy improved to 44.4%. Though Kopp took twice as many shots from behind the 3-point line as he took inside of it, he diversified his game to make 56.1% of his 2-point shots, 11 percentage points better than he had done at Northwestern or Indiana.

While Kopp had most of his best career scoring games at Northwestern, he did notch his career-high of 28 in Indiana’s 112-110 double overtime loss at Syracuse in 2021.

Since he left Indiana, Kopp has spent parts of the last two seasons with Oklahoma City’s G League team, Oklahoma City Blue. Kopp averaged 12.7 points for Oklahoma City Blue in 2025.

Perhaps Kopp’s real legacy is that Indiana made the NCAA Tournament in his two years in the program – the only two NCAA Tournament appearances during Woodson’s five seasons as coach.

Kopp was brought in to do a job – and he did it.