The Indiana Hoosiers 2025-26 basketball season effectively ended on Wednesday night in a 74-61 loss to the Northwestern Wildcats in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament. The Hoosiers entered Wednesday with a puncher’s chance to make the NCAA Tournament due to a weak bubble AND they were getting the help they needed from other teams on the bubble. However, the opportunity was squandered and turned an opportunity into a wasted first year under head coach Darian DeVries.
“We all came here wanting to lay the ground work for this program and the culture and really set the tone, but just down the stretch of the season, we weren’t able to capitalize on some of the opportunities we had.” Indiana senior Tucker DeVries said after the loss.
The Hoosiers had plenty of opportunities to play themselves off the bubble over the last month. A home loss to Northwestern less than two weeks ago kicked off a key three-game home stand on a sour note, but it wasn’t just that. IU had losses in games where they had build double-digit leads throughout the season. Losses at Minnesota and Kentucky were a real kick in the teeth, but came early enough to recover, but that first Northwestern loss at home will stick out.
“Like I told them, there’s no going back. Every season you’ve got a certain amount of games you’d like to have
back. Certainly we felt like there’s a little more in there for us that we would have liked to have gotten done.” Darian DeVries said.
DeVries danced around the question about playing in a non-NCAA Tournament postseason event and the prevailing thinking is that they will skip the postseason altogether.
“We haven’t really gotten that far yet.” DeVries said. “We’ll have to talk to administration, coaches, and players
and see where that’s all at.”
The expectations for this edition of Indiana basketball was not otherworldly and really this team should have been able to benefit from flying under the radar as the Indiana football team was winning a national title. Football’s success should have covered up the warts of basketball enough for the team to figure it out and it almost did.
The Hoosiers beat Miami for the title on January 19th, in the seven games following that IU went 5-2 including home wins over then No. 7 Purdue and Wisconsin. They also beat UCLA in overtime on the road. IU was 17-8 (8-6) and NCAA Tournament hopes were sky-high.
That’s all this team needed to do to get by. Win 20 games and make the NCAA Tournament. All these bad feelings would be toned down a bit. Nobody would look back in 5 years and say that first year was really tough. It would be an afterthought or even a stepping stone and a foundational piece to build on.
Barring something insane, IU’s season ends here. Back at square one. While the DeVries and the Hoosiers learned some hard lessons that need to be put into practice this offseason, the runway is gone. Bringing in Ryan Carr to serve as a general manager with a fancier title is a good addition to the tool box, but what foundation was laid?
None. It is unfair to compare everything to Curt Cignetti and Indiana football. It’s a unicorn situation. However, it’s obvious what the standard is for that program. It’s less so for this version of basketball.
There was very little player development. Outside of Lamar Wilkerson, who got better? Is Trent Sisley, who played one minute in a blow out loss Wednesday, the future? If he was, he would be playing more in some of these blowouts to at least see what you have.
DeVries was put into a tough situation. He was hired late, he missed out of some major targets and his roster had known flaws going into the season. There was always a ceiling and this team performed how people expected them to. When they shot well they looked really good, when they didn’t they looked bad.
The issue is that IU is looking at another totally new roster. While they have a solid recruiting class and some lines in the water for big international fish, it’s back to square one instead of being one step ahead in a rebuild.
The season was one giant wasted opportunity filled with multiple missed chances to lay the groundwork for the future.
The pressure for year two got cranked up after the last month. DeVries cannot afford to waste another opportunity to take steps forward.