Indiana Basketball Player Report Card: Kanaan Carlyle

Excitement was high when Carlyle committed to Indiana in April 2024. Carlyle had a promising first college season at Stanford. He averaged 11.5 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists for the Cardinal. He was honorable mention on the All-Pac-12 freshman team and was the Associated Press national player of the week on Jan. 2, 2024.

It was easy to see the upside in Carlyle, but there were also signs of the downside. He missed the first month of the 2023-24 season, but then he averaged 15.4 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists in his first 11 games of his career.

During that stretch, Carlyle made 42% of his 3-point shots. Given that the Hoosiers had a dearth of shooters during the 2023-24 season, he seemed to be just what the doctor ordered.

Added to that was his above-average defense and the fact that he could handle the offense if called upon.

However, Carlyle fell off in a big way in the last half of his freshman season. His averages in his final 12 games fell to 7.9 points, 2.6 assists and two rebounds. His 3-point shooting plummeted to 22%.

The thought for all of Indiana’s guards – both the ones they retained and the transfers they brought in – was that the rising tide would lift all boats. With three guards on the floor in conjunction with Mackenzie Mgbako or Malik Reneau and Oumar Ballo, someone would be open.

Less-than-stellar 3-point shooting from both Carlyle and Myles Rice were sloughed off. Both would be better, conventional wisdom dictated, when placed on a team full of talent and where they didn’t have to carry their squad.

How The Season Went

From the beginning, Carlyle was star-crossed. Carlyle failed to score in the season opener against SIU-Edwardsville, though he did have six rebounds. In the first six games of the season, Carlyle started all of them and played at least 20 minutes in all but one of the games. However, his only productive scoring game was a 12-point effort against South Carolina.

Then Carlyle suffered a lower body injury that caused him to miss three games. He returned as a reserve player and never started again.

Upon his return, he had a promising 3-for-6 effort from 3-point range in a win against Minnesota, but he would not make that many threes in a game again. After that spurt against Minnesota, Carlyle was 1 of 14 in his next games.

Carlyle’s confidence seemed to dissipate. He often tried to force his shot and he never achieved any kind of consistency. He finished the season with a woeful 28.9% success rate from the field overall and was 24.3% from 3-point range.

Minutes began to fall, and Carlyle missed another four games in the midst of Indiana’s trouble in late January and early February.

His playing time was usurped by Anthony Leal, and to a lesser extent, Trey Galloway. Carlyle did have a strong 36-minute effort in the overtime win at Ohio State and played well in a road loss at Oregon, but the Big Ten portion of the schedule was scattershot in terms of consistent production from the Atlanta native.

Carlyle averaged just four points for the Hoosiers. He averaged 16.2 minutes. His defense was usually solid, but it wasn’t enough to overcome his offensive lack of production.

Player Grade

Whether Carlyle’s troubles were due to the overall turmoil experienced by the team or whether it was due to injury or lack of confidence, we don’t know. What we do know is that Carlyle fell short of expectation. He never got into gear and there were only passing glimpses of the player Indiana thought it was getting from Stanford.

The right coach can likely get something out of Carlyle, but Mike Woodson wasn’t that coach, and the disappointing season Indiana had never gave Carlyle a chance to have any run of success.

It was a disappointing season. If Carlyle stays with the Hoosiers, Darian DeVries will need to have a good plan in place to get something out of the guard, but 2024-25 was a lost season for Carlyle with the Hoosiers.

Grade: D.