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

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 than anything else. 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?