No. 17 Indiana men’s basketball will play its final exhibition game at 7 p.m. Friday against Marian University inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
The Hoosiers opened the exhibition slate with a 66-62 road victory over No. 12 University of Tennessee on Oct. 27. Junior forward Malik Reneau scored 21 points while redshirt sophomore guard Myles Rice added 20 points.
Still, Indiana believes it was far from perfect against the Volunteers and has plenty to improve upon moving forward.
“It's not pretty in the beginning,” Rice said in a Zoom press conference Thursday. “We still have to get out a lot of kinks and get familiar with one another playing against somebody else, because you're practicing against each other all year up until that first game. It's going to be a long season — you’ve got to take it not even game by game, but just day by day.”
Now, Indiana welcomes Marian — and the son of a Hoosier great — to Bloomington.
Meet the Knights
Marian is led by head coach Pat Knight, the son of late Indiana head coach Bob Knight, who stood on the Hoosiers’ sideline from 1971-2000 and won three NCAA titles. Bob Knight passed away Nov. 1, 2023.
Pat Knight, who played under his father at Indiana from 1991-95 and returned as an assistant coach for the 1999-2000 season, is entering his first year as the Knights’ coach. This marks his third stint as a head coach, as he went 50-61 across three-and-a-half seasons at Texas Tech University from 2007-11 before going just 29-62 at Lamar University from 2011-14.
Over the last decade, Knight worked as a scout for the NBA’s Indiana Pacers.
Now, he’s tasked with running Marian, a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) which went 23-8 last season but lost head coach Scott Heady to the University of Indianapolis.
The Knights return their leading scorer and assister in senior guard Gus Etchison, who averaged 22.8 points and 3.9 assists per game last season. Redshirt senior center Jackson Ames, a 7-footer who posted a team-high 6.3 rebounds per game in 2023-24, is also back in the fold.
Indiana holds a 3-0 record all-time against Marian, including a pair of matchups in the past two exhibition seasons. The Hoosiers took a 78-42 victory over the Knights on Oct. 29, 2022, and snagged a 94-61 triumph Nov. 3, 2023. Indiana is 31-0 all-time against non-Division I opponents in exhibition games since 2004-05.
The Hoosiers and Knights will tip off at 7 p.m. Friday. The game will be broadcast live on Big Ten+ (subscription required), while the IU Radio Network with Don Fischer, Errek Suhr and John Herrick will also have coverage.
Follow reporters Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) and Quinn Richards (@Quinn_richa) and columnist Mateo Fuentes-Rohwer (@mateo_frohwer) for updates throughout the Indiana men’s basketball season.
