How good can Indiana basketball be in Darian DeVries’ second season at IU? How low can they go?
ESPN’s Myron Medcalf took a shot at setting a ceiling and a floor for every team in the Big Ten ahead of the 2026-27 season.
Admittedly, this exercise is a bit premature with the potential for very late cycle roster additions like we saw last weekend when Sam Alexis announced his intent to return to IU.
But a national perspective on the league still makes for an interesting expectation setting exercise here in early August.
Here’s where Medcalf set Indiana’s ceiling and floor:
CEILING
Total wins: 25
Big Ten finish: Fourth
Postseason finish: NCAA tournament round of 32
This seems reasonable, if perhaps a bit conservative for a true ceiling. Counting the postseason, it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of what’s possible for IU to pass 25 wins.
Most prognosticators believe Michigan State, Michigan and Illinois are a top-three that’s going to be hard to beat, which is likely why Medcalf doesn’t project IU higher than fourth. The Hoosiers do have a very favorable league schedule however. Indiana only faces those top-three teams once, and all of those games are in Bloomington. That’s why 27 wins might be a better ceiling, but it can be hard to think about IU that way. They haven’t reached that win total in a decade.
The postseason finish is the ceiling we’d take the most issue with. In the wacky NCAA Tournament, Indiana definitely has a roster capable of playing in the second weekend.
2026-27 FLOOR
Total wins: 19
Big Ten finish: Eighth
Postseason finish: NCAA tournament round of 64
The floor seems reasonable for IU. The roster is too talented and deep to finish much lower in any of these categories barring significant injuries.
Said differently, if Indiana doesn’t make the now 76 team NCAA Tournament next spring, there will be major red flags regarding the direction of the program.
What about the rest of the conference?
Ordered by their best case scenario, Medcalf slots in Michigan State as first in the Big Ten, with a ceiling that includes 35 wins and the national title. He also gives Michigan a chance to repeat as champions, and Illinois a chance to return to the Final Four.
Indiana has just the 10th-highest ceiling in the Big Ten according to Medcalf.
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