With losses in five of their last six games, IU basketball’s chances of playing postseason basketball are on the decline six weeks ahead of Selection Sunday.
Let’s start with the Big Ten Tournament first this week. That field will be fully determined in less than five 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 has slipped to 11th in the conference standings through Sunday action, and they face five of the top six teams over their next five games. So if the Hoosiers (14-8, 5-6) want to remain comfortably in the league’s postseason tournament in Indianapolis, they’re going to need to snap out of their current funk and not fall to 5-11 in the Big Ten. The current 16th place team in the Big Ten is Penn State, at 3-8. Two teams currently below IU suffered major season ending injuries. Iowa lost center Owen Freeman, and Northwestern lost guard Brooks Barnhizer.
If there’s good news, three of those next five are at home for IU. Road trips to Wisconsin on Tuesday and Michigan State next week look like the biggest remaining challenges, although all of the next five will be very difficult.
Now let’s look at what Indiana’s 0-1 week with a loss at Purdue did to their NCAA Tournament chances.
Of the 18 prognosticators at Bracket Matrix who have updated their projection of the field through IU’s loss at Purdue, no one has the Hoosiers in the field of 68 at the moment.
Indiana’s loss at Purdue did no harm in the NCAA’s NET rankings where the Hoosiers are No. 65 as of Monday afternoon. That’s actually a three spot improvement over last week’s update. IU has a 2-8 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 model at Bart Torvik gives IU an 8.8% chance to make the field as of Monday afternoon, also an improvement despite the 0-1 week.
In ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s latest projection (before the Purdue game), Indiana was one of his “next four out” (i.e. the fifth through eighth teams out). That’s likely the general vicinity where they remain.
So despite five losses in their last six games, Indiana isn’t that far from the Field of 68 as things stand at the moment. And the Hoosiers still have several more chances to pick up Quad-1 wins and play their way into the bracket.
Seven of their last nine games currently fall in the Quad-1 category. And that same challenging schedule continues to present the opportunity to bridge the gap.
The Hoosiers would have a strong chance of making the field just by winning the rest of their home games along with a win at Washington. That would give them four more Quad-1 wins. Six total Quad-1 wins and a .500 league record would at least put them in the conversation going into the Big Ten Tournament, especially if they avoid blowout losses (and maybe even pick up a blowout win) along the way.
Here are Indiana’s remaining nine regular season games:
- at Wisconsin – Quad-1
- vs. Michigan – Quad-1
- 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:
Rankings Page: Links to the Top NCAA Men’s Basketball Ranking Services Including the NET
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