“Keep it chippy!” That was a directive that came from first-year IU Indianapolis men’s basketball coach Ben Howlett a number of times in the team’s third official practice. What does he mean by it? “If things get chippy,” he says afterwards, “it gets a little more personal with these guys. So every now and then–I don’t, like, encourage fighting or anything in practice–but sometimes our best practices are when they’re trying to beat the other guy and make it personal with the guy they’re guarding.”
Given the way Howlett wants to play, and their very guard-heavy roster, they will have to be chippy during the former Division II West Liberty coach’s adjustment to the Horizon League. Both Howlett’s roster choices and coaching hires were a mix of guys he had history with at his former institution and guys with ties to Indiana. Long segments of practice were unsurprisingly devoted to both the transition game and press that Howlett wants to employ, but what they aren’t is an overwhelmingly big group, and it remains to be seen what that will look like when, say, Tuburu Naivalurua and Greg Kampe come to town. Howlett wants to win right away, but don’t be surprised if this team takes some early lumps but shows dramatic improvement over the course of the season.
Returning Players
This will be a quick discussion, as there is exactly one name on the Jaguar roster that was there a year ago: 6-3 senior guard Ajay Holubar. Holubar has been at IU Indy for his whole college basketball career, and while his contribution on the court during games has been limited and will likely continue to be, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t or won’t have a valuable role on the team. He’s the guy who knows the terrain. “First of all, Ajay’s a great kid,” Howlett says. “…If you tell him to do anything, he’ll do it. The first couple weeks, he was telling me which doors to go through and to get to the locker room and how to get to different places on campus. Just a likeable guy. And that’s a guy that you don’t have to worry about the effort part with him, you know he’s going to bring it every day.”
Incoming Players
To give you an idea about both how newcomer-dependent this group will be, and the type of guys Howlett brought in, if everyone scored what they scored last year, they’d average more than 150 points as a team. Expect this team to score, based on style alone, but not that much. And much of that production was at lower levels than Division I, including high school, so part of the early going may be about establishing trust and finding the right rotation. Look for Howlett to rely both in minutes on the floor and in terms of leadership on some of his West Liberty guys–JP Dragas (9.2 ppg, 46% from 3), Kyler D’Augustino (17.3 ppg), Finley Woodward (10.7 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 56% fg), and Kameron Tinlsey (11 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 51% fg)–as the rest of the team learns and polishes Howlett’s culture and system.
“For those guys,” Howlett says, “it’s making sure these new guys that weren’t with me at West Liberty are accustomed to what we’re doing and kind of bridge the gap if a guy’s not playing hard or a guy’s not, you know, fully sprinting, they can be the one to tell them rather than me because I yell at them all the time, so it’s in one ear and out the other. If one of these older guys that have played for me before that have had success doing it say it it might mean a little more coming from them.”
Projected Starting Lineup
JP Dragas – 6-1 sophomore guard
Micah Davis – 6-2 sophomore guard
Kyler D’Augustino – 6-1 junior guard
Jaxon Edwards – 6-5 senior guard
Finley Woodward – 6-7 senior forward
Preview Week 2025-26
MBB: Preseason Poll | Preseason All-League | Preseason Awards
WBB: Preseason Poll | Preseason All-League | Preseason Awards
Cleveland State (MBB | WBB) | Detroit Mercy (MBB | WBB) | Green Bay (MBB | WBB) | IU Indy (MBB | WBB)
Milwaukee (MBB | WBB) | Northern Kentucky (MBB | WBB) | Oakland (MBB | WBB) | Purdue Fort Wayne (MBB | WBB)
Robert Morris (MBB | WBB) | Wright State (MBB | WBB) | Youngstown State (MBB | WBB)
Subscribe to our emails, and get our latest posts in your inbox, plus a weekly digest of everything we've published!
