BLOOMINGTON — The various metrics used to evaluate potential NCAA Tournament teams seem to evolve and adjust every year, but they all aim to answer the same questions.
By any definition, which teams are the best and most deserving of spots in the field of 68? And how should those teams be seeded within the bracket?
But it doesn’t matter which data points anyone refers to when looking at Indiana men’s basketball. They’d all suggest the same outcome: IU is squarely on the bubble, and trending in the wrong direction after another rough week. The Hoosiers suffered a bad loss at home against Northwestern on Tuesday, and then fell 77-64 to No. 13 Michigan State on Sunday.
IU, in fact, has lost four straight games and five of its last six. Head coach Darian DeVries getting thin on time to turn things around.
“I thought we were playing really, really good basketball coming off of the Oregon game,” DeVries said after Sunday’s game. “Went to Illinois and had a tough stretch there, Purdue, came home to Northwestern at home, and that was one we felt we really let get away. Tonight we knew it was going to be a battle again. I thought we competed our asses off tonight, just wasn’t enough.”
Indiana (17-12, 8-10 Big Ten) is losing ground in two key metrics, in particular.
IU’s résumé, for much of the year, was held up by its lack of bad losses. The Hoosiers had won the games they were supposed to win, avoided blowouts in most of their losses, and picked up a few nice victories here and there. None of the wins have been the type to be serious weight-bearers, though. And the Northwestern loss changed the conversation — that was Indiana’s worst defeat of the year.
Michigan State (24-5, 14-4) looked the better team all day Sunday, earning a wire-to-wire win at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. That result leaves Indiana 2-11 in Quad 1 games in the NET.
The Hoosiers could pick up an extra win in that category if Wisconsin — currently No. 32 — can get back inside the top 30. And they still have one more Quad 1 game on the schedule, Saturday’s road contest at Ohio State. The Big Ten Tournament could also provide additional Quad 1 opportunities, depending on IU’s matchups in Chicago, but it’s unclear how much the selection committee factors conference tournament results into at-large consideration.
All of that is to say, Indiana needed to take advantage of this opportunity against the Spartans on its home floor. And the team fell short, yet again.
“We’re just not playing our best basketball as a group. There’s a lot of things we have to fix. We’ve played some good teams, other than the one we choked on last week. I don’t know,” IU guard Lamar Wilkerson said. “We have to find a way to get back to how we was at the end of January, beginning of February. If any time, it’s right now. If we can get to that point right now, I feel like we’ll be good going into March.”
The other metric IU is in rough shape with is Wins Above Bubble (WAB), which the NCAA stated in February will be a clear factor for NCAA Tournament selection. WAB, essentially, measures how well an average bubble team would fare against a given team’s schedule, assigning weighted points for and against each squad for every game, depending on results.
Entering Sunday, the Hoosiers ranked No. 47 in the country in WAB, at +0.17. So Indiana has performed nearly the same as any average bubble team would fare against the same schedule. That’s not a ringing endorsement for a team to earn a spot in March Madness.
The door isn’t necessarily shut for the Hoosiers, as the entire bubble is weak, and they still have chances to spruce up their résumé. But this team has had so many chances to make up ground and just failed to capitalize. Sunday’s game played out in the same way. Indiana twice cut the deficit to five points, and the Assembly Hall faithful got loud. But IU never sustained those spurts for long enough to take a lead.
The Hoosiers let another Quad 1 opportunity go to waste. Their roster has clear holes and limitations which have become increasingly prominent as the season’s gone along. Those two things may come to define Darian DeVries’ first season in Bloomington.
All he can do, now, is attempt to get his players to turn the page and play better basketball the next two games than they did in the last four.
“There’s a short amount of time here with the regular season and Big Ten Tournament to go on a run. That has to be our mindset. That has to be our focus. Just leave it all out there, finish the job,” DeVries said. “We have one more home game left. It will be a big game for us. We’ve got a Quad 1 at Ohio State, and then the Big Ten Tournament. Our focus has to be on the next one and find a way to try to beat Minnesota.”
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