Indiana men’s basketball recruiting: Hoosiers, Boilers miss the cut for five-star Flory Bidunga

For the second year in a row, Indiana’s No. 1 boys high school basketball prospect will be playing his college ball outside of the state’s borders.

Neither Indiana nor Purdue, both of which were in on the recruitment, made the final four schools in five-star 2024 C Flory Bidunga’s list, according to On3’s Joe Tipton. Bidunga plays at Kokomo High School in Kokomo, Indiana and is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Bidunga, a consensus five-star is rated as the No. 1 center in the class of 2024 and No. 4 overall recruit by every major recruiting database including On3, ESPN, 247Sports and Rivals.

With a final four of Auburn, Duke, Kansas and Michigan, Bidunga will play college basketball outside of Indiana. It may not be the last Indiana or Purdue sees of him though, should he choose to attend Big Ten rival Michigan. This comes after Xavier Booker, a top recruit in the class of 2023 out of

Other schools previously in on Bidunga include Louisville, Kentucky, Michigan State and Georgetown.

The winds have been blowing this direction for a while for Indiana. Bidunga has taken a few visits to Indiana but the widely-held assumption for a while now has been that he’ll play elsewhere.

The Hoosiers can now fully direct their focus to other prospects in the 2024 class such as SF Rakease Passmore, SF Liam McNeeley, PF Tyler Betsey, PF Asa Newell, C Patrick Ngongba II and C Derik Queen, among others.