CHICAGO – IU’s locker room was surprisingly relaxed after a loss to Maryland knocked it out of the Big Ten Tournament – especially for a team that had slipped from certainty to doubt in the last months.
Selection Sunday was a little less than two days away. Until then, everybody would have to sit and wait – and wonder if the Hoosiers had done enough to make the NCAA Tournament’s field of 68 teams.
Everybody except IU itself, that is. The Hoosiers won’t spend the next two days worrying about their postseason destination. They’ve come too far for that, sophomore guard Stanford Robinson said.
“I mean, who doesn’t want to go to the NCAA?” Robinson said. “But nobody expected us to be here.”
IU was tabbed to finish in the Big Ten’s bottom five by most preseason polls. Then the Hoosiers exceeded expectations.
They sat atop the conference standings in January and hung around the top four for most of the season. A late-season collapse dropped them to No. 7 in the final regular-season standings, but even that was higher than almost every projection.
“People had us as the 12, 13, 14 seed in the Big Ten,” sophomore forward Collin Hartman said. “I think we have exceeded expectations from the outside, but we’ve always had high expectations for ourselves.”
IU’s two-day showing in the Big Ten Tournament – Thursday’s win against Northwestern and today’s nine-point loss to Maryland – may have solidified its NCAA Tournament chances. As of Friday night, the Hoosiers are a projected No. 12 seed by bracketmatrix.com, a site that aggregates hundreds of experts’ projected fields into a composite bracket.
But still, it’s up in the air. The NCAA Selection Committee works mainly in private, and it’s made unexpected decisions before.
Still not enough to worry about, Robinson said.
“We’re going to be fine,” he said. “I feel like we have a great chance of being in the Tournament. We beat some good teams, some great teams. Just went down to the wire with Maryland, which is a great, great team.”
IU Coach Tom Crean said he’s never been in this situation. He’s never watched Selection Sunday without knowing beforehand whether his team would make the field or not.
“But you know what, it is what it is,” Crean said. “I love coaching them, and I’m looking forward to continuing it next week.”
The Hoosiers don’t have any set plans for Sunday night’s selection show, but Hartman said he expects them to watch and learn their fate together. He said he’s excited for at least one more game, NCAA Tournament or not.
“Wherever, whatever the decision is,” he said. “It’d be an honor, but the bottom line is we’re going to be playing basketball next week."
