Written by: TJ Inman
After his first season in Bloomington, Indiana, head coach Darian DeVries was very clear about wanting to get bigger and tougher in the frontcourt. On Monday night, his staff took a gigantic step towards doing just that as the Hoosiers snagged a surprise commitment from 7’2″ center Samet Yigitoglu. One day later, the commitment of his new frontcourt partner became public as IU added one of the best players in the transfer portal: 6’10” big man Aiden Sherrell, a power forward/center from Alabama that has two seasons of eligibility remaining. Sherrell averaged 11.1 points per game, 6.2 rebounds per game and 2.2 blocks per contest as one of the best rim protectors in the country.
He secured a Box Score Plus/Minus of 8.6 (per Bart Torvik), a score that would have placed him way ahead of every IU player and on par with standout players like David Mirkovic (8.4), Ivan Kharchenkov of Arizona (8.0) and Nolan Winter of Wisconsin (8.2). Sherrell projects as a major impact, potential All-Big Ten frontcourt and the Hoosiers beat out Michigan State, North Carolina, Providence and others for his commitment. The mobile big reportedly wanted to spend the majority of his minutes at the power forward position and IU securing Yigitoglu makes that possible. After a couple of days of tense waiting, the announcement was dropped on Tuesday afternoon.
Aiden Sherrell averaged only a tick over three points per game as a freshman with the Crimson Tide but made a major leap as a sophomore, turning himself into an efficient offensive weapon and a force on defense. To gauge his potential impact, even without another jump in development, let’s take a look at Sherrell’s impact against top 25 opponents:
- Purdue – 12/4/1 with +16.7 BPM
- Illinois – 6/2 with +11.7 BPM
- Gonzaga – 14/6/3 blocks with +9.6 BPM
- Arizona – 7/5/8 blocks with +12.2 BPM
- Texas – 13/5/1 block with +14.1 BPM
- Florida – 13 points/5/5 assists with +17.5 BPM
- Arkansas – 26 points/13 with +10 BPM
- Texas Tech – 10/2 with +21 BPM
- Michigan – 10/4/3 assists with +10.3 BPM
In total, Sherrell was +9.8 in SEC games and a very stellar +9.4 against Top 100 caliber opponents. He’s in the 90th percentile on two-point field goals and this past season showed that he is at least capable of being a three-point threat (27 of 80). The offensive weapons give him a true shooting percentage of 62.69%. Any way you slice it, he’s a top-end offensive big man. On defense, Sherrell is a 96th percentile shot-blocker and he pairs it with good strength and positional awareness plus above-average rebounding skills.
Aiden Sherrell is one of the most complete big men in college basketball and his addition gives IU a true anchor in the middle. He’s very capable of playing power forward or center and is a significant addition for Darian DeVries to build the rest of the roster around. Sherrell and point guard Markus Burton are now locked in as the marquee names for the Hoosiers, with Darren Harris and Jaeden Mustaf lined up as solid guards with high-major experience. Samet Yigitoglu is very likely the starting center and brings significant presence and rebounding ability. All five players have two years of eligibility remaining. Attention will now turn to rounding out the roster with complementary pieces that can help Indiana compete on the national stage as early as next season. The Hoosiers now have nine scholarship players with four spots remaining to be filled.