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Indiana basketball enters the 2022-23 season with an extremely talented front court and one with a lot of depth and versatility. That talent has been there, but this will be the first season in quite some time that the depth is there as well.
While Indiana is headlined by Trayce Jackson-Davis and Race Thompson, it’s freshman forward Malik Reneau who has turned some heads early in summer workouts.
Reneau, a five-star prospect, comes to Indiana after being a vital piece to the Montverde Academy program which has won back-to-back National Championships. Now, he's bringing his talented skillset to Bloomington, in what could been the missing piece to Indiana’s desire to win the Big Ten.
Reneau averaged 11.9 points and 6.6 rebounds this past season, including 14.3 points and 8.3 rebounds at the GEICO High School Nationals tournament. He had 14 points and 12 rebounds in the National Championship game.
He's used to being a go-to player and being able to use his big 6-foot-9 and 235-pound frame on the offensive end to his advantage. Now, it's using that to his advantage while adapting to the college game that is much different -- something Reneau found out right away in summer workouts with Indiana.
"It's been a lot of changes," Reneau said on a zoom call on Thursday. "I mean, I've been going against Race and Trayce for two weeks now. You can tell the physical difference from high school and college. It's hard to bump bodies with Race and Trayce because they are all solid and it's not easy to move them. I have to find different moves or get past them with speed and not just overpower them and that's where I found a big difference and from high school and from college. I mean, I feel like it's more a finesse game and not just trying to back down your man."
Jackson-Davis and Thompson return to Bloomington after averaging 29.4 points and 15.6 rebounds per game combined. Both shot 58.9 percent and 53.6 percent respectively. Their consistency and skills have pushed Reneau every day in practice already. On the flip side, Reneau has brought another talented player to the front court, pushing that duo as well.
"It's going to help me a lot," Reneau said. "It's going to help not only me but everybody take their game to the next level and that's what we need, to take our game to the next level step-by-step and compete against all these other good schools around the country."
Already, Reneau has made plays that have impressed the veteran forwards.
"He hit like a little shimmy one-foot fadeaway that was pretty nasty that kind of turned my head a little bit," Race Thompson said earlier this summer. "I would say that's one move that he made in practice the other day. He had a Euro step yesterday on like two people that was really nice. I've been really impressed with him."
"Malik, he's a great player," Jackson-Davis said. "The thing with him too, he's a winner. So that's great... I'm going to take him under my wing this summer and get to work and play with him, play against him, see how he is, and we're just going to take it from there.”
That relationship with Reneau and Jackson-Davis is something that the five-star Montverde product is extremely excited for.
"He's real dominant down low and understands how he can control his man in the post," Reneau said of Jackson-Davis. "He just finds a way to get easy baskets down low and I look at that and I see how I can have a resemblance to Trayce being tough and being dominant down low."
Not only has Reneau impressed his front court counterparts, his skillset has also stood out to other members of the freshman class new to seeing him play.
"He's a beast overall," Kaleb Banks said. "He's really good at attacking the basket and getting his teammates involved and stuff like that."
"Malik, he's just a straight killer when it comes to post work and mid-range," CJ Gunn added. "He also has a clip from the three-point line."
Regardless of the minutes or role that he plays, Reneau is ready to compete and help Indiana in any way.
"I'd say having a winning mentality, competing on the court," Reneau said. "You know, doing whatever it takes to help my team win."
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