Indiana Men’s Basketball Bracketology: What A Difference A Week Makes

Indiana’s five-game win streak has the Hoosiers back on the good side of the bubble in many projections.

Indiana's Trey Galloway (32) is surrounded by USC defenders including Rashaun Agee (30) during the Indiana versus University of Southern California men's basketball game at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. / Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – There are two operative words when it comes to bracketology for all teams, but especially for the Indiana men’s basketball team.

It’s early.

This cuts both ways for the Hoosiers. They can go from scant tournament consideration one week to suddenly being a bubble darling in several brackets the next.

That’s part and parcel with trying to predict a 68-team tournament field two months before the competition is played.

Late last week, before Indiana resumed its Big Ten schedule with wins over Rutgers, Penn State and Southern California, the Hoosiers only were featured in one bracket tracked by website bracketmatrix.com. And that might have been an oversight by Oak Creek Madness, who listed the Hoosiers as both in the field and in the teams left out.

Not so this week. Indiana has reached the No. 56 spot in the NCAA’s NET rankings, No. 51 on barttorvik.com’s analytics site and is inside kenpom.com’s top 50 in the No. 49 spot.

Indiana’s 77-71 victory over Penn State also gave the Hoosiers a Quad 1 victory, their first of the season, which helps their resume.

Bracketologists took notice – and many compiled their brackets before Indiana’s 82-69 victory over USC on Wednesday. Indiana appeared in 14 brackets this week.

Indiana’s most prominent appearance was in the CBS Sports bracketology done by Jerry Palm. He had the Hoosiers as a No. 10 seed playing No. 7 seed Houston in Raleigh, N.C.

That would be a juicy matchup as former Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson coaches the Cougars.

Palm is one of five bracketologists that has the Hoosiers pegged as a No. 10 seed. The best seed the Hoosiers have is a No. 9 seed in the inccstats.com projection. That site doesn’t do a bracket but assigns a percentage to each team’s bid chance. It gave Indiana a 62.4% chance of making the field.

Indiana is listed as a No. 11 seed in eight projections. Six of them have the Hoosiers playing in the First Four in Dayton as one of the last four teams to make the field.

Several bracketologists, including ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, have Indiana as one of the first four teams out of their fields.

Indiana’s NCAA Tournament credentials will come into sharper focus in the coming weeks as the Hoosiers prepare for a stretch where 10 of 11 games count as Quad 1 contests. Saturday’s 8 p.m. ET game at Iowa starts it. A win over the Hawkeyes could be important as Iowa is right on the bubble with the Hoosiers. It’s the only meeting of the season between the two teams.

Indiana hosts Illinois Tuesday. A win over the Fighting Illini, now sixth in the NCAA’s NET rankings, is the feather in the cap Indiana needs to strengthen its resume. Penn State is not guaranteed to remain as a Quad 1 win. A victory over the Fighting Illini likely has more staying power.

Of course, losses to both teams would put Indiana right back in the position it was in last week – on the outside looking in.

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• INDIANA WINS FIFTH STRAIGHT: Indiana bested Southern California 82-69 on Wednesday at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. It is the Hoosiers' fifth-straight triumph. CLICK HERE.

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• KEY TO BALLO'S SUCCESS: The absence of Malik Reneau has fueled several theories that it's made Oumar Ballo better for Indiana. Many of Ballo’s successful plays feature him in motion, not in stationary positions on the floor. CLICK HERE