Indiana Women’s Basketball Bracketology: Hoosiers Inch Towards Bubble

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – One of the vagaries of NCAA Tournament selection that can drive administrators, coaches and fans crazy is the shifting emphasis on certain aspects of a resume.

For example, sometimes a team gets in on the basis of accumulated Quad 1 wins. Sometimes a team that has a similar resume with a similar amount of Quad 1 wins gets left out due other criteria selected that was used against them.

Indiana’s women’s basketball team might be running headlong into this dynamic as its season comes to a close.

The Hoosiers lost 73-65 at Michigan State last Sunday and fell 74-60 at home to Maryland on Thursday.

Neither are “terrible” losses as the NCAA NET rankings are concerned, although for the moment, the game against the Terrapins counts as a more damaging Quad 2 loss. Maryland is ranked No. 26 in the NET as of Friday. A Quad 1 game at home is against teams ranked 1-25.

The problem for the Hoosiers are that they are piling up a lot of losses that dent their resume. After the pair of losses this week, Indiana is 7-10 in Quad 1-2 games.

Not bad, not disqualifying for the NCAA Tournament, but not a wonderful situation to be in either. The Hoosiers’ loss at Butler on Nov. 13 also counts as a Quad 3 loss and any defeats in the Quad 3-4 range are given weight by the selection committee.

After victory over Ohio State on Feb. 20 took Indiana off the bubble, the Hoosiers were placed right back on it in the latest bracketology projections that came out on Friday.

ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme had Indiana among the last four teams to get a bye into the tournament in his projections released on Friday. He had Indiana ahead of four teams the Hoosiers played this season – Nebraska (Indiana win), Washington (Indiana win), Minnesota (Indiana loss) and Harvard (Indiana home loss).

Creme had Indiana as a No. 10 seed, slipping down a line from his projection earlier in the week. Creme had Indiana playing No. 7 seed Oklahoma State in Storrs, Conn. at a site hosted by Connecticut. The winner of the Indiana-Oklahoma State game would face the winner of the UConn-Albany game. The winner of that would advance to the Spokane Regional.

It’s a tenuous position. Indiana has teams around it that it beat, but that also beat the Hoosiers. Something to also keep in-mind is that bracketologists don’t account for bid stealers. Being one of the last four byes is closer to the cut line than it would initially seem.

The Hoosiers got a kinder look from Connor Groel of CBS Sports. Groel doesn’t pick a full bracket, he just seeds his teams. He had Indiana as a No. 9 seed.

That would send the Hoosiers to one of the sites hosted by one of the No. 1 seeds. Given that Big Ten members Southern California and UCLA will likely be No. 1 seeds, the Hoosiers would most likely travel to South Carolina or Texas if they were seeded in the 8-9 range.

For Indiana to add some heft to its resume, it will have to do so in the Big Ten Tournament.

The regular season finale at Purdue only provides danger for the Hoosiers. A win is necessary, not only to avoid having to play on day one of the Big Ten Tournament, but to keep a very bad loss off the resume.

If Indiana beats the Boilermakers, it will quite likely be in the No. 7-10 seed range for the Big Ten. That would mean a quarterfinal game against either USC or UCLA.

Beat one of them and the Hoosiers would be sitting pretty, but a loss before Indiana gets a chance to play either of those teams would be devastating.

Related stories on Indiana basketball