The AP Poll was released on Monday afternoon and the Indiana basketball team was still left on the outside looking in.
There are always puzzling decisions when it comes to the AP Poll and this week’s edition is no different. The Hoosiers are yet again on the outside looking in as they only had enough votes to be 32 in the country.
The Hoosiers are outside the top 25, while Florida State sits at number 19 after moving up two spots. That is the same Seminoles team that the Hoosiers beat two weeks ago at home. They also have one more loss than the Hoosiers after also losing to Pitt to open the year.
The argument could be made that the Hoosiers have a worse loss at Wisconsin, but that is their only loss and the Big Ten isn’t winning any road games in the conference right now. While not a great loss, it really shouldn’t have hurt them that bad.
West Virginia is also ranked for the first time despite losing to a bad St. John’s team and their best win is against an unranked Wichita State team. Washington has a very similar schedule to Indiana but has two losses to Indiana’s one.
Just outside the rankings ahead of Indiana is North Carolina who is now without their star and only scorer Cole Anthony and they just lost for the third time in four games when Wofford beat them. Purdue also has more votes and just lost to Nebraska, who Indiana just beat.
For those counting at home that is five teams that Indiana has a legitimate argument over and we haven’t even talked about Xavier who just lost to Wake Forest who is just 6-5.
Truthfully, the rankings are more for show than anything else, but it is still nice to see a small number next to your team’s name. The fact that Indiana isn’t ranked isn’t necessarily the problem. It’s the teams that are ranked ahead of them.
The Hoosiers definitely have more to prove and will have that chance in the next couple of weeks, but they should be ranked this week and the fact that they aren’t but others are ahead of them is ridiculous.
Indiana now has some bulletin board material and can use it as motivation. They have played the underdog role well thus far, they just need to keep the same fight in them and soon enough the media will recognize it.