10/29/2022 basketball Edit

Jalen Hood-Schifino earns his stripes in first game of the 2022 season

Kevin Vera • TheHoosier

Staff Writer

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Basketball is back in Bloomington and the Hoosiers emerged victorious in their first exhibition game against Marian University 78-42. This was one of two exhibition games that Indiana will play this year but this was the first chance that Hoosier nation got to see the new highly anticipated team.

Leading the group was Jalen Hood-Schifino, and in his first game as a Hoosier, he showed flashes of what everyone could see from the freshman guard going forward.

Hood-Schifino is a former five-star recruit from Montverde Academy who committed to Indiana just over a year ago on Aug. 24, 2021. He clocked in as the 18th-ranked recruit in the country last year, and now as an Indiana Hoosier, his impact is already being felt on the court.

Hood-Schifino earned the start against Marian on Saturday making him the first highly touted guard to start in his first game since Romeo Langford in 2018.

Head coach Mike Woodson was unsure of who would earn the starting role ahead of Indiana's first contest, but after looking things over, Woodson gave the green light to his true freshman guard.

“He’s competing. He competed when we first started five months ago, he's put himself in that position… Jalen earned the right to start. He’s put in the work.” Woodson said.

Caption: Indiana's Jalen Hood-Schifino (1) plays defense during the first half of the Indiana versus Marian men's basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022. (Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK)

Hood-Schifino was active all afternoon playing a significant amount of minutes and allocating 11 points on 5-on-8 shooting with four assists and three rebounds. The freshman guard was able to start alongside his high school teammate Malik Reneau.

Woodson credits their preparedness to how they were brought up in such a highly competitive system like Montverde Academy.

“I look at Jalen and Malik, they came out of a system in Montverde, that coach is a damn good coach, and he pushes guys to play hard and do the right things on both ends of the floor. I think the transition for them coming in, especially for Jalen, has been easy for him because the kid works,” Woodson said.

Woodson said that practices are different from games when it comes to those high pressure situations. So, he was pleased to see the performance by Hood-Schifino and the rest of the team. After the game, teammates Logan Duncomb and Jordan Geronimo both talked about how surprised they were to see how Hood-Schifino was so comfortable on the court.

“He plays like a vet a little bit, I would say. He plays with great pace. He knows when to take good shots," Indiana forward Jordan Geronimo said. "He knows when to pass the ball and he passes the ball really well. He plays like he's been in college for a while, you know what I mean? But, he's only a freshman so that's really impressive to see...”

Hood-Schifino and the Hoosiers will finish up the other half of their exhibition games next Thursday as they face off against Saint Francis on Nov.3.