The 2023-24 Indiana State Sycamores put together a season for the ages. They went 32-7, won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season championship, got ranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time in 45 years, came within a whisker of reaching the NCAA tournament, and played their way to the finals of the NIT, where they lost by two points to Seton Hall. It was the the program’s best season since Larry Bird took the Sycamores to the the 1979 NCAA championship game, and their rabid, long-suffering fans celebrated accordingly.
Alas, the rapid rise has succumbed to inevitable gravity in recent weeks. Coach Josh Schertz left for Saint Louis. All five starters entered the transfer portal. Two of those starters, junior guards Jayson Kent and Julian Larry, committed to Texas, while the