Trent Sisley Highlights: See Indiana’s New Basketball Addition in Action
The former Heritage Hills basketball star, who is currently graduating from Montverde Academy in Florida, is one of the top 100 players in the 2025 recruiting class
BLOOMINGTON – Indiana’s signing of Trent Sisley on Monday marked the end of one of the longest recruitments of Mike Woodson’s tenure.
Sisley, a top-100 forward in the class of 2025, received his offer from IU in December 2021, less than a year after Woodson took office. He was identified as a promising Big Ten prospect early in his prep career, and IU’s relationship with him has spanned virtually the entire duration of Woodson’s time in Bloomington.
Monday’s announcement is a satisfying conclusion to the Hoosiers’ long search for a player who took his talents from Heritage Hills High School to Montverde Academy in Florida. But bringing him home will have an added meaning for Woodson, at least to one degree: It’s the first time in his tenure that he has recruited and signed a player from his own state.
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When Woodson – an IU graduate and Indianapolis native – accepted the top job at his alma mater, it was widely assumed that he would focus his attention primarily close to home. IU’s long history of using in-state talent, coupled with Woodson’s background, led college basketball lore to assume that the Broad Ripple graduate would make in-state recruiting a higher priority.
Instead, Woodson swam against the current.
Sisley’s commitment on Monday makes him the first in-state player to be signed by Woodson to the Hoosiers out of high school. He is expected to sign in November, making him just the second player from Indiana to sign with Woodson’s program, following CJ Gunn (Lawrence North), who committed to the previous team before honoring his commitment with the coaching change.
Additionally, Woodson was conspicuously selective about his in-state targets during this time, offering Cathedral Center Xavier Booker, for example, who eventually landed at Michigan State. But Woodson didn’t cast the wide net that was expected when he was recruited.
Sisley is technically not the first promising player from the state that Woodson has targeted and signed – he has already signed several such players from the transfer portal, most notably Luke Goode (Homestead) and Langdon Hatton (North Harrison) last spring.
But 2025 represents a significant departure from previous years for Woodson. Whether it’s Sisley, Jalen Haralson (Fishers/La Lumiere) or Braylon Mullins (Greenfield Central), one of the best classes the state has seen in recent years has caught Woodson’s attention in recruiting for some time.
Indiana has put more pressure on in-state players this cycle, and it’s not hard to see why. All three of the aforementioned players are top-100 recruits. Multiple recruiting services view Haralson and Mullins as five-star prospects. IU beat out Purdue, Michigan State and Notre Dame to sign Sisley and will have to win similar – if not more intense – battles in the majors to earn a commitment from either of the other two.
Woodson hasn’t been averse to recruiting players in general. Not all of his signings have paid off, but according to the 247Sports Composite, IU has signed five top-30 players during his tenure. Two of those, Jalen Hood-Schifino and Mackenzie Mgbako, eventually earned Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors, while a third, Malik Reneau, is expected to be named an All-Big Ten player in the fall.
The false assumption was that he would default to staying close to home. Woodson has gone where the talent is, and in this class, that was his own backyard.
On Monday, it paid off in the form of a flexible forward from Southern Indiana whose potential could translate to long-term impact on both ends of the court. Woodson hopes his program’s success in this class doesn’t end there.
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