Plenty of continuity will persist for Indiana entering next season, but Justin Smith’s departure means a key cog in the team’s on-court look and performance is gone.
It’s impossible to brush aside Smith’s importance to Indiana when looking at the raw statistics from his three seasons in Bloomington.
Smith appeared in all 98 games Indiana played during his time with the school, starting 73 times (including all 32 games in the 2019-20 season).
As a junior, he became the first IU frontcourt player since Will Sheehey in the 2013-14 season to average more than 30 minutes per game, and this plethora of playing time came during a campaign in which Smith was Indiana’s third-leading scorer (10.