There are five regular season games left for the Indiana Hoosiers and IU sits at 17-9 (8-7) which is good enough for 10th place in the Big Ten. The Hoosiers have won enough to currently be in most NCAA field projections, but there is still work to be done and questions to be answered. Here are the five biggest questions IU is facing heading into the final month of the regular season.
1. What is IU’s Target to Make the NCAA Tournament?
There are just under four weeks left until Selection Sunday and the NCAA Tournament talk is starting to heat up. The Hoosiers currently sit at 34 in the NET rankings, dropping three spots after their loss to Illinois. That should be good enough to get in if the season ended today. However, the season does not end today. The Hoosiers have five games left and will probably need to go 3-2 to safely be in. Home games against Northwestern, Michigan State and Minnesota are essentially must wins. There is a tiny margin for error against Purdue while the season finale at Ohio State could also be in that “must-win” category.
3-2 over the final four games gives IU a 21-11 (11-9) record and probably a double bye in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. IU needs to avoid the bad loss more than anything. Here are the NET ratings of the teams remaining on IU’s schedule
Purdue- 7
Northwestern- 77
Michigan State- 15
Minnesota- 86
Ohio State- 38
The Hoosiers have two Quad 1 wins, but no Quad 3 or Quad 4 losses. Continuing that trend would be beneficial. I do believe that’s the road to March Madness. If they drop one of the home games, things get a little dicey.
2. What is Going on With Tayton Conerway?
One of the mysteries of IU basketball recently has been the usage and availability of Tayton Conerway. The redshirt senior guard hurt his ankle in the loss at Iowa on January 17. We know that much. He came back to play just two minutes against Michigan just three days later. Makes sense, his ankle was still sore and not really ready to go yet. However, on January 23. Conerway played 18 minutes in the Hoosiers win at Rutgers. Then things get wonky.
Conerway missed the next two games, a home win over Purdue and the overtime win at UCLA. However, he came back to play at USC then missed the Wisconsin game due to illness before coming back and playing just four minutes in each game against Oregon and Illinois. So what is going on?
Conerway has played just 18 minutes since January 23. Indiana head coach Darian DeVries has hinted that Conerway’s ankle wasn’t ready for Purdue.
“Tayton’s trying to come back from an ankle injury that occurred during the Iowa game. So, you know, he’s working hard to try to get back out on the floor. But he just doesn’t feel like he’s ready to go right now.” DeVries said on January 27.
DeVries has also said the flu has run its course through the locker room, so the only logical answer here is Conerway’s ankle is not 100-percent and not responding to playing the way he needs it to to be as effective as he was early in the year.
3. Is Trent Sisley in the Dog House?
Unless we see practice or DeVries opening says it, it’s hard to know for sure if it’s a dog house situation or that Trent Sisley has hit a freshman wall. Sisley started the year well and was a key player in IU’s wins over Marquette and Kansas State. He played no fewer than 10 minutes in ever game up until IU’s loss to Iowa on January 17. Since then, Sisley has had double-digit minutes in just two games.
The situation is confusing because DeVries has trusted Sisley in some big spots late in games, but clearly something is going on because his usage has fallen off a cliff. If I had to guess, something show itself in the losses vs. Iowa and at Michigan that has him sitting more.
4. Can Nick Dorn Get Out of His Slump?
The Hoosiers recent hot streak coincided with Nick Dorn’s emergence as another scorer for IU. During a four-game stretch where IU went 3-1 that started with Rutgers and included wins against Purdue and UCLA, Dorn averaged 20.3 points per game. His success made Indiana more difficult to guard and made up for the fact Conerway was struggling with an injury and illness.
Since the win at UCLA Dorn has been as cold as the Indiana weather. He has scored just 18 points over four games and is just 4-28 from the field. Dorn seemed like another player who was affected by the flu, but he too could be hitting a wall. Dorn was rehabbing from a foot injury all preseason and missed the first few games of the season. He looks like he has tired legs and while I thought he got back on track with his second half against Oregon, he scored just one point at Illinois. The Hoosiers had not played in six days, so if his legs were not there on Sunday when will they be back?
5. What is Success for this Version of Indiana Basketball
Some fans are understandably frustrated with what Indiana basketball has become after being one of the blue bloods of the sport with five national titles. However, it’s 2026 not 1986 and things need to be re-evaluated based on the current landscape as opposed to 40 years ago.
The basketball program has tried to get back to levels that Bobby Knight took them too and it has not gone well. Tom Crean did a nice job of digging out of the pit from the Kelvin Sampson era and an untimely injury to OG Anunoby helped accelerate his departure from IU. Crean’s time was up. He had peaked at IU with two Sweet 16s and was the top seed heading into the 2013 NCAA Tournament before collapsing against Syracuse. Archie Miller seemed like a home run hire on paper, but was largely a disaster.
Then IU went full nostalgia and hired Mike Woodson and while Woody had some good moments and got IU into the NCAA Tournament twice, the damage that era did to IU basketball was more wide spread than people realized. The coaching search that brought DeVries to IU left something to be desired as it seemed like IU whiffed on everyone on the top of their list. Add in the fact that Dusty May is very successful at Michigan and you have people putting DeVries on a very short leash.
The anger from the Woodson Era turned into apathy and while Curt Cignetti distracted people from basketball by winning a national title with the football program, it was pretty clear that there are deep wounds that need to be healed.
IU’s recent hot streak, and close games, have brought back some of the interest in the program. Thrilling victories and agonizing defeats do get people emotionally invested, but it’s still not where IU basketball used to be. So what is success for this version of IU basketball?
Success should be making the NCAA tournament (go as far as you can), get to the portal season and start building the roster the way it needs to be built for the 26-27 season.
It’s a far cry from having Sweet 16 expectations, but this is reality right now. If IU goes 21-10 (11-9) and makes the NCAA Tournament it will be a step in the right direction. Expectations will change every year as they should, but that’s where they are at right now. And to be honest, success in the Portal will be more telling about how the DeVries Era goes, than his NCAA Tournament success in year one.