Coming on the heels of a three-game losing streak, an 18-point win over then No. 18 Wisconsin was not enough for IU men’s basketball to receive even a vote for the AP top-25. After falling out of the top-25 last week, this week marks the first time the Hoosiers have fallen completely out of the votes this season.
From the Big Ten, Purdue is leading the way at No. 3 this week, and Rutgers made their season debut in the top-25 at No. 23. No one else from the Big Ten is ranked right now. Illinois, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Iowa are all receiving votes.
Among Indiana’s high major non-conference opponents, Kansas is in the No. 2 spot, Xavier has moved all the up to No. 8, Arizona is No. 11, and North Carolina is receiving one vote.
Ultimately, Indiana’s NCAA Tournament fate will be decided by the NCAA’s NET rankings tool. The Hoosiers are currently No. 32 according to the NET. They are only 1-5 in Quad 1 games, but they are 2-1 in Quad 2, and have no bad losses in the eyes of the NCAA with an 8-0 mark in Quad 3 and 4 contests.
Indiana’s game at Illinois on Thursday is an opportunity for a Quad 1 win.
According to Bracket Matrix, a site that aggregates and averages the most popular bracketology sites, Indiana is currently a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
You can always find links to all of the latest rankings and advanced metric sites on our IU basketball drop-down menu, or by CLICKING HERE.
A loss by No. 2 Stanford wasn’t enough for the IU women to move up after a 2-0 week. The Cardinal dropped just two spots to No. 4, and IU held at No. 6 for the third straight week. That was despite IU claiming a top-10 win over Maryland during the week.
Ohio State (18-0) did move up to that No. 2 spot, while Maryland dropped to No. 11. No. 10 Iowa and No. 14 Michigan are also in the top-20 from the Big Ten.
The Hoosiers play just once this week, at the other team in the top-25, No. 21 Illinois, a squad that took IU down to the wire in Bloomington in December while Grace Berger was out. The Illini are 15-3 on the season. That game is Wednesday evening in Champaign (8 p.m. BTN Plus).
It will be a gauntlet for IU to close out the regular season. The Hoosiers have three straight against ranked opponents, with games at Michigan and vs. Ohio State coming next week. Seven of their final 11 games are against currently ranked teams.
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