Indiana gave its postseason resume a major boost on Sunday.
With a win over Purdue, the Hoosiers have nearly secured a spot in the Big Ten Tournament and have placed themselves squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
The Hoosiers (16-11, 7-9) are currently tied for ninth place in the Big Ten with Nebraska. The Big Ten Tournament field will be fully determined in less than two weeks. And as a reminder, only the top 15 teams in the 18-team conference will make the field for the 2025 Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis.
While IU is only one game ahead of 15th place USC in the loss column, they are two games above 16th place Northwestern. The current bottom three in the conference standings are Northwestern (5-11), Penn State (5-12) and Washington (4-12). The Hoosiers play both Penn State and Washington in their final four games.
With so many teams between IU and 16th place, a two-game margin in the loss column with four to play, and a favorable late schedule, the Hoosiers look like a near lock for the Big Ten.
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Now let’s look at what Indiana’s 1-0 week with the win over a top-20 Purdue squad did for their NCAA Tournament chances.
Of the 11 bracketologies at Bracket Matrix that have been updated through Sunday’s games, seven have Indiana in the tournament. That’s a major improvement from last week. Six brackets have IU as an 11 seed, and one has them as a 12. Joe Lunardi of ESPN has IU as the first team out of the field.
The model at Bart Torvik gives IU an 28.5% chance to make the field as of Monday afternoon, an improvement from 11.6% when we checked last week.
For the fourth straight week IU moved up in the NCAA’s NET rankings, from No. 57 to No. 56 as of Monday morning. Their win at Penn State continues to fluctuate between Tier-1 and Tier-2. At the moment IU has a 4-11 record in Quad-1 games, and a 12-0 record in the other three quads.
The Hoosiers still have at least one more chance to pick up a Quad-1 win and play their way into the field of 68. But they also risk suffering their first Quad-2 loss if they suffer a misstep along the way.
Here are Indiana’s remaining five regular season games.
- vs. No. 69 Penn State – Quad-2
- at No. 95 Washington – Quad-2
- at No. 32 Oregon – Quad-1
- vs. No. 34 Ohio State – Quad-2
As a reminder, here’s how the NCAA NET rankings divide games into quadrants:
- Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
- Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
- Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
- Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353
You can always find links to the latest NET rankings and other national ranking sites and services here:
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