Indiana has given its NCAA Tournament resume a significant boost over the last week.
With Selection Sunday now less than six weeks away, we are once again taking a weekly look at the Hoosiers’ chance to make the Big Dance.
The headline: IU is clearly an NCAA Tournament team at this moment.
Once again, the NET rankings serve as the primary sorting tool for Division I men’s basketball, and they play an important role in establishing a team’s resume.
The 2025-26 men’s basketball season marks the eighth year of the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings, which replaced the RPI prior to the 2018-19 season as the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams.
Two main tools are utilized in the NET rankings. The Team Value Index (TVI), which is a result-based feature that rewards teams for beating quality opponents, particularly away from home, as well as an adjusted net efficiency rating. The adjusted efficiency is a team’s net efficiency, adjusted for strength of opponent and location (home/away/neutral) across all games played.
Using the quadrant system, the quality of wins and losses are organized based on game location and the opponent’s NET ranking.
- 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
The number of Quadrant 1 wins and Quadrant 3/4 losses will be important when it comes time for NCAA tournament selection and seeding.
And IU picked up its first two Quadrant 1 wins of the season over the last week, with wins over Purdue and at UCLA. Here is their current record as of Feb. 2 by Quadrant:
- Quad 1: 2-6
- Quad 2: 1-1
- Quad 3: 5-0
- Quad 4: 7-0
Currently Indiana is ranked No. 30 in the NET after opening at No. 11 in early December. The No. 30 team on Selection Sunday last year was Baylor, a No. 9 seed.
At Bracket Matrix, Indiana is included in 51 of the 97 projections. In those 13 inclusions, their average seed is 10.29. But in brackets updated since IU’s win over UCLA, the Hoosiers are in 26 of 27 projections, with an average seed below 10.
The NET isn’t the only measurement tool the NCAA Selection Committee considers. There are actually seven. Here is where IU ranks in each of them:
(week over week change shown in parenthesis, + is an improvement)
- NET – 30 (+5)
- Torvik – 23 (+3, Torvik gives IU a 95.3% chance to make the field)
- Wins Above Bubble (WAB) – 34 (+9)
- KenPom – 33 (+4)
- Basketball Power Index (BPI) – 25 (+2)
- KPI – 49 (+`19)
- Strength of Record – 37 (+`18)
REMAINING SCHEDULE
The Hoosiers have plenty of opportunities remaining to enhance their NCAA Tournament worthy resume, with five Quad-1 games remaining:
- at USC (Q1)
- vs. Wisconsin (Q2)
- vs. Oregon (Q3)
- at Illinois (Q1)
- at Purdue (Q1)
- vs. Northwestern (Q2)
- vs. Michigan State (Q1)
- vs. Minnesota (Q3)
- at Ohio State (Q1)
- Big Ten Tournament
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