At the beginning of the 2024-2025 women's basketball season, the Indiana Hoosiers found themselves right on the line of not being ranked, as they came in at No. 25. After a loss in the first week of play to Harvard, the Hoosiers quickly fell out of the rankings, but they still received votes.
In the second week of play, though, Indiana also fell to Butler, and ever since, it seems like Indiana can't do enough to get back in the minds of voters. That means that the three ranked losses the Hoosiers have right now don't mean much. Since those two early losses, the Hoosiers have gone 11-2, with their only losses in that stretch
Those two losses came from a then No. 16 UNC team and a No. 1 ranked UCLA team, a team that is undefeated and even beat the back-to-back National Champion South Carolina Gamecocks.
Since then, Indiana has been 4-1 in the Big Ten, with a recent win over No. 23 Iowa, in which the Hoosiers went into Carver Hawkeyes Arena and walked away with a seven-point win. After that win, Hoosiers got just a little bit of love in the rankings by receiving 14 votes, which put them at the No. 28 spot, but they need a lot more in order to get in the rankings.
There are currently six Big Ten teams in the Top 25: No. 1 UCLA, No. 4 USC, No. 8 Maryland, No. 9 Ohio State, No. 22 Michigan State, and No. 25 Minnesota. Indiana is one of four Big Ten teams to receiver votes in the latest poll, with Michigan getting 43, Indiana obviously getting 14, Nebraska getting 11, and Iowa getting just one after the loss.
The Hoosiers are currently the fifth-best team in the Big Ten based on conference records, it doesn't seem like they can do anything right to get a chance in the Top 25 again. At this point, they need to just keep their head down and keep winning because that is probably the only chance they have of getting into the rankings.
The Hoosiers take on Illinois tonight in Assembly Hall and then face a big test by welcoming in No. 4 USC this weekend. If Minnesota stays in the rankings, that will be Hoosier's next ranked matchup coming in early February, followed by Ohio State, Michigan State, and Maryland to finish off the month and the regular season.