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I’ve remained higher than most on Mike Woodson’s Indiana Hoosiers over the first two months of this season largely thanks to a combination of preseason expectations and a résumé that, as of Thursday morning, featured zero losses to teams ranked outside the top 15 at KenPom.com.But IU now has a loss to a sub-15 KenPom team.The Hoosiers fell 91-89 at Iowa on Thursday night despite shooting 54.2% from the field and 53.3% from 3-point range while getting 30 points and nine rebounds from Trayce Jackson-Davis. Put another away, the Hoosiers wasted a great offensive performance and lost to an Iowa team whose third-leading scorer (Patrick McCaffery) just stepped away from the program amidst a stretch in which the Hawkeyes went 3-6 and suffered losses to Nebraska and Eastern Illinois, the latter of which is 6-10 and ranked 350th at KenPom.That’s obviously not good.A fresh look at IU’s body of work shows more not-good stuff.Indiana is now 2-4 in the first two quadrants, according to the NET. How bad is that? Literally no other team in Friday’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings has so few victories inside the first two quadrants. Furthermore, only Baylor and Duke, No. 25 and No. 26 in the Top 25 And 1, respectively, are the only other schools in these rankings with a losing record inside the first two quadrants. That’s among the reasons I’ve packaged Indiana with them and dropped the Hoosiers to 24th in the Top 25 And 1.
Next up for Indiana is a three-game stretch against Northwestern (home), Penn State (away) and Wisconsin (home). Based on current numbers, that’s a Q1 opportunity (Penn State) and two Q2 opportunities (Northwestern/Wisconsin), which means the Hoosiers could go from 2-4 in the first two quadrants to 5-4 in the first two quadrants with a three-game winning streak over the next nine days. If they do it, I’ll adjust accordingly. But, right now, Indiana’s résumé is lacking and barely keeping the preseason Big Ten favorite in the Top 25 And 1. Top 25 And 1 rankings
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