Race Thompson's plans for his final year at IU are to work on his shot and win more than ever

Race Thompson ultimately decided to stay at Indiana because he wasn't at all sure where he would end up if he left.

The Hoosiers' forward started every one of Indiana's games in each of the past two seasons and had become arguably its most dependable all-around player. Some team some where would have certainly been willing to pay for his services and give him a professional contract.

But he had virtually zero reason to believe he could be taken in the NBA draft and not much more to think that he'd get a chance in the G-League. There would certainly be opportunity for him elsewhere, but there was a good chance he'd have to leave the country to play professional basketball.

IU basketball: Indiana women's basketball announces Big Ten home and away opponents

If he decided to take advantage of the COVID wavier and play a sixth year at Indiana, he wouldn't have to go anywhere.

"I didn't really know where I would go," Thompson said Thursday in a Zoom call with reporters. "If I was to go pro, where would I be? I don't know. I felt like if I came back here, I was able to keep building on what I've been able to build in the past two years of really playing real minutes. Hopefully with that, I can get some type of contract in the next year."

So Thompson is back in Bloomington for the summer and is now getting reacquainted with all of the reasons he had to stick around. He has the opportunity to become a better player and make himself more valuable professionally, and also has the chance to play on a better team than he's been a part of in any of his first five years at Indiana.

Personally, he thinks the areas he has to work on are obvious. No one on Indiana's roster fills a stat sheet like the 6-8, 235-pound Thompson, as he finished last season. third on the team in scoring (11.1 points per game), second in rebounding (7.5 rpg), third on the team in total assists (50), second in total steals (37), and tied for second in total blocks (24).

But modern basketball asks for more perimeter skill from power forwards these days on both ends of the floor. Thompson has proven a capable defender of stretch power forwards and bigger wings, but he showed some shortcomings there against some of the Big Ten's top players, including likely lottery pick Keegan Murray of Iowa. Thompson's ability to handle the ball on the perimeter is functional, but not spectacular, and his outside shooting still has a long way to go.

Thompson made a combined 6 of 28 3-pointers (21.4%) in his first three seasons on the floor under former coach Archie Miller after redshirting the 2017-18 season. Last season coach Mike Woodson demanded that Thompson look for opportunities to take 3s and keep shooting even when he missed. He finished the season 15 of 55 from 3-point range (27.3%) last season, though he improved as the season went on and got 11 of his 15 makes in league play. He shot 53.6% from the floor, getting most of his buckets around the rim and even adding a mid-range floater to his game, but the 3-ball clearly lagged behind the rest of his game.

Still, that felt like progress to Thompson and he believes he can make more with a staff that is determined to make him shoot outside.

"They've been really working with me on it a lot," Thompson said. "Showing me what I need to do, what I need to change about my shot. Just little tiny things to make my shot more consistent. We've seen improvements already."

By "tiny things" Thompson is referring to where his hands are before he gets the ball.

"Just shot preparation," Thompson said. "Having my hand behind the ball ready to shoot the ball when I catch it. Not having to make a lot of movements with the ball when I shoot it. That's something that has helped my shot not go left or right, just keep it long or short if it's a miss. I noticed I've made a lot more shots that way."

Thompson is noticing his team is also making more shots than it was a year ago at this time. That certainly doesn't guarantee any on-court translation to making Indiana a better 3-point shooting team, as the Hoosiers finished with a Big Ten low 5.9 3-pointers per game last season and lost their most prolific 3-point shooter in guard Parker Stewart. Still, he has cause for optimism.

"We're already shooting the ball better than we shot it last year around this time," Thompson said. "We have like warm-up drills where we keep track of how many makes we get, and we've already bested what we started at last year. Our first time we got like 25 and our first time last summer we got like 12 or something like that, so we doubled that on the first day."

The Hoosiers are considered one of the early favorites to win the Big Ten after losing just one starter in Stewart and four total transfers. In their place, they add a four-man recruiting class that ranks eighth nationally according to the 247Sports composite rankings with a pair of five-star recruits in guard Jalen Hood-Schifino and forward Malik Reneau. Thompson has had to deal with Reneau up close and has been extremely impressed.

"My early impressions of him are that he's a great player," Thompson said. "I have not seen a lot of film of him in high school. When he got here he was bigger and stronger than I had expected him to be, and he's just, like I said earlier, seems like he's already ready to play in the Big Ten. In the weight room he's strong, on the court he's strong, he's athletic, and he's skilled. He's definitely going to be an exciting piece for us. I think he can help us out a lot."

With All-Big Ten center Trayce Jackson-Davis back as well as extremely athletic forward Jordan Geronimo, the Hoosiers may have the best frontcourt depth in the conference, and may arguably also have the most proven point guard in Xavier Johnson.

That makes a lot seem possible to Thompson, whose first NCAA tournament as a collegian was last season when the Hoosiers beat Wyoming in the First Four before being pounded by Saint Mary's in the first round. The Hoosiers have never won more than 21 games in a season since he has been at IU but he thinks expectations for this team should go well beyond that.

"That's something we talk about every single day in practice," Thompson said. "Our goal is to win a Big Ten championship and a national championship. We talked about that last year and we almost got to the Big Ten championship in Indy. We fell short and we don't want to feel that again. We kind of got that feeling where the ball started rolling our way in the Big Ten tournament a little bit, and that's a feeling that we want to feel all year."

Coming anywhere close to those goals would put a bow on what has been a sturdy career for Thompson, who has become one of the most beloved players in the program because of his tenacity. He has often been the player most willing to do the little things to help his team win. He just hasn't been on teams that have won very much, so it was worth it for him to try to experience that.

"I think if I keep playing the way I can play, and I play even maybe a little bit better and improve my game as I have every year, I think that will really show what a true Hoosier is, what it's all about to be a Hoosier," Thompson said. "I think that's really what I want."

Follow Herald-Times IU Insider Dustin Dopirak on Twitter at @DustinDopirak or email him at DDopirak@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: IU forward Race Thompson looking for more 3s and wins in final season