This is looking more and more like only an assessment of Indiana’s chance to make the Big Ten Tournament as the weeks pass.
But the Hoosiers do still have a rapidly dwindling chance to make the NCAA Tournament.
So for now we’ll continue to look at both paths.
The Big Ten regular season ends on March 9, and NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday is on March 16.
With losses in seven of their last eight games, IU basketball’s chances of playing any postseason basketball are on the decline.
Let’s start with the Big Ten Tournament first this week. That field will be fully determined in less than four weeks.
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.
IU (14-10, 5-8) has slipped to a tie for 12th in the conference standings through Sunday action, and they are just one game out of 16th place in the loss column. Indiana’s next three games are against top-five teams in the league, so there’s a real chance the Hoosiers could be out of the field with four games to go in the regular season.
If it gets to that point, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the players and coaches will still have enough resolve to try to climb back into the field.
Now let’s look at what Indiana’s 0-2 week with a losses to Michigan and Wisconsin did to their NCAA Tournament chances.
As you’d expect, Indiana is nowhere to be found in anyone’s prognostication of the field. So that was easy.
But Indiana’s losses last week did not harm them in the NCAA’s NET rankings where the Hoosiers are No. 62 as of Monday afternoon. That’s actually a second straight three spot improvement over the prior week’s update. IU has a 2-10 record in Quad-1 games, and a 12-0 record in the other three quads. Teams ranked in the 60s typically don’t make the field absent a very impressive showing in Quad-1 games.
The fact that IU is moving up in the NET despite losing highlights the fact that they’d still be in the hunt for the Big Dance with a strong finish.
The model at Bart Torvik gives IU an 3.6% chance to make the field as of Monday afternoon, a drop from 8.8% a week ago.
The Hoosiers still have several more chances to pick up Quad-1 wins and play their way into the bracket. But it will take a miracle run now by a team that hasn’t shown any kind of propensity for miracles lately.
Five of their last seven games currently fall in the Quad-1 category.
The Hoosiers could make the field by winning their home games, beating Washington on the road, and upsetting Oregon or Michigan State on the road.
Here are Indiana’s remaining seven regular season games:
- at Michigan State – Quad-1
- vs. UCLA – Quad-1
- vs. Purdue – Quad-1
- vs. Penn State – Quad-2
- at Washington – Quad-2
- at Oregon – Quad-1
- vs. Ohio State – Quad-1
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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