Indiana Men’s Basketball: Rankings Roundup

Feb 6, 2023 - 5:59 PM

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Through the ups and downs of a college basketball season, the various polls and statistical rankings of a team provide a nice counterbalance to the euphoria or despair the fanbase may be experiencing in a given moment. This new weekly column will take a look at how the Hoosiers stand in each ranking and how it’s changed over the previous seven days.

I’ll be focusing most on Kenpom, Bart Torvik, NET rankings, and the AP poll, but if you have another site you want me to cover, sound off in the comments and I can give it a look. That said, let’s take a look at where Indiana stands today, Monday, February 6th.

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Kenpom

It was a bit of an up and down week for Indiana in the Kenpoms ranking, as it entered the game against Maryland at 18th in the country. As fans, we know that bad games happen, but the performance in College Park hurt the Hoosiers statistically, bringing them down to 23rd in Kenpom before the Purdue game.

Purdue entered the game ranked third on Kenpom and was favored to win even on the road, so Indiana’s win Saturday pulled it back up to 20th in the rankings. At 18th nationally, this Indiana offense is the most efficient we’ve seen since Tom Crean’s 2016 Big Ten Championship team, which finished eighth nationally in offensive efficiency.

Kenpom predicts that Indiana will finish the season 20-11 and favors it to win both games this week, giving the Hoosiers a 59% chance tomorrow against Rutgers and a 53% chance on the road in Ann Arbor.

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NET Rankings

Even with a win over the No. 4 team in the NET rankings, Indiana dropped two spots to 22nd after going 1-1 this week. Both the win at home against Purdue and the road loss to Maryland were quadrant one games, which brings Indiana’s quad one record to 3-6 on the year.

As things stand right now, both games this coming week are also quad one, giving Indiana the chance to bolster its resume without risking any pesky quad three losses. Obviously the quad one record could stand to improve, but Indiana is perfect in quads three and four, where losses really hurt a team on Selection Sunday.

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Bart Torvik

Indiana moved up a spot to 28th this week in Bart Torvik’s rankings with its tournament chances and projections staying about the same from last week. Indiana now has a 98.9% of making the tournament and its average seed is 5.2, according to Torvik.

The win over Purdue was Indiana’s second best game, according to Torvik’s game scores. On the other hand, the loss to Maryland was only rated marginally better than the win at Minnesota, another very ugly performance.

Looking ahead to the rest of the week, Torvik gives Indiana a 56% chance of victory tomorrow against Rutgers, while actually favoring Michigan by a narrow margin this coming Saturday.

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AP Poll

Indiana jumped three spots in this week’s AP Poll, coming in at 18th after the win over the still No. 1 Purdue Boilermakers. As was the case last week, Indiana is the second-highest ranked team in the conference, though Rutgers is now ranked at 24th, while Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, and Northwestern were all receiving votes.

Obviously, with another ranked opponent on the schedule, Indiana has a shot to keep moving up the rankings again next week if it can take care of business this week. With the rest of the conference appearing to regain the AP’s respect, there aren’t really any opportunities for bad losses left on the schedule either.