Preseason polls are rolling in ahead of the 2024-2025 season and Indiana's Men's Basketball is on the boards in the Big Ten.
The Indiana Hoosiers are ranked No. 9 in the Big Ten Conference by Blue Ribbon Yearbook’s Top 25 rankings featured in the publication’s 2024-25 college basketball season preview. The digital edition was released earlier this week.
Last season, Indiana was picked to finish in first place in the Blue Ribbon Yearbook preseason poll, but disappointed in 2024 with a 20-12 record finishing 10th in the B1G.
New head coach Darian DeVries rebuilt the IU roster from nothing with all new players on the new team. The top additions are Reed Bailey , a 6’10” forward transferring in from Davidson, Lamar Wilkerson, a 6’5” guard coming from Sam Houston State and Tucker DeVries a West Virginia transfer who played in eight games last season. Tucker, son of head coach Darian was a two-time Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Player of the Year while at Drake University.
The Blue Ribbon preseason top 25 rankings include five Big Ten teams: Purdue (No. 2), Michigan (No. 9), UCLA (No. 12), Illinois (No. 20) and Wisconsin (No. 21). Oregon, Iowa, Michigan State, Indiana, Washington, Ohio State, USC, Maryland, Nebraska, Northwestern, Minnesota, Rutgers and Penn State round out the rest of the conference.
The preseason Big Ten all-conference team selected by Blue Ribbon is Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn (Purdue), Donovan Dent (UCLA), Yaxel Lendeborg (Michigan) and Bennett Stirtz (Iowa). While the pick for Big Ten and National player of The Year went to senior guard Braden Smith of Purdue.
Blue Ribbon Yearbook is an annual publication previewing the college basketball season since the early 1980s, was recently released in a digital format.
Blue Ribbon Yearbook's 2024-25 college basketball preview is available to purchase here.
2025-26 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook Preseason Top 25
Rank
Team
1.
Florida
2.
Purdue
3.
Houston
4.
Duke
5.
Connecticut
6.
St. John's
7.
Tennessee
8.
Kentucky
9.
Michigan
10.
Louisville
11.
Alabama
12.
UCLA
13.
Auburn
14.
Texas Tech
15.
Arkansas
16.
BYU
17.
Iowa State
18.
Kansas
19.
Creighton
20.
Illinois
21.
Wisconsin
22.
Arizona
23.
Gonzaga
24.
Texas
25.
North Carolina