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IU basketball is locked in as the No. 10 seed in next week’s Big Ten tournament

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IU basketball is locked in as the No. 10 seed in next week’s Big Ten tournament

The 2026 Big Ten tournament tips off next Tuesday at the United Center in Chicago and there’s still plenty to play out in terms of seeding for an event that will include all 18 conference teams.

However, seeding for three teams, including Indiana, is already locked in.

The Hoosiers will begin postseason play as the No. 10 seed on Wednesday, March 11, at 6:30 p.m. ET on BTN.

The other programs with locked-in seeds include Michigan, the outright regular-season Big Ten champion and Penn State, the league’s last-place finisher. The Wolverines are the No. 1 seed and the Nittany Lions are the No. 18 seed.

As the No. 10 seed, Indiana will play the winner of the No. 15 vs. No. 18 game on Tuesday. Penn State is the No. 18 seed and the No. 15 seed will be either Northwestern or Rutgers.

Indiana beat Penn State 113-72 on December 9 in Bloomington and beat Rutgers 82-59 on January 23 in Piscataway. The Hoosiers fell to Northwestern 72-68 on February 24.

The winner of the No. 10 seed vs. No. 15/18 seed winner will play the No. 7 seed on Thursday, March 12 at 6:30 p.m. ET on BTN. The programs still in play for the No. 7 seed, in order of likelihood, are UCLA, Ohio State, Purdue and Iowa.

Here are the full seeding and tiebreaker procedures for the Big Ten tournament:

Tiebreaker Procedures for Tournament Seeding
1. Teams shall be seeded No. 1 through No. 18 in the tournament bracket based on the final regular-season Conference standings.
2. A team’s seed shall correspond to its regular season finish (i.e., the champion shall be the No. 1 seed, the runner-up the No. 2 seed, etc.).
3. Teams that finished Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the regular season shall receive a “bye” through the first three rounds. Teams that finished No. 5, 6, 7, and 8 in the regular season shall receive a “bye” through the first two rounds. Teams that finished No. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 in the regular season shall receive a “bye” through the first round.
4. In case of a tie for any place finish in the regular-season standings, the following tie-breaking procedure shall be followed in order to seed teams in the tournament bracket:

A. Ties Involving Two Teams:
1. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular season.
2. Each team’s record vs. the team occupying the highest position in the final regular-season standings (or in the case of a tie for the championship, the next highest position in the regular-season standings), continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
a. When arriving at another pair of tied teams while comparing records, use each team’s record against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to their own tiebreaking procedures), rather than the performance against the individual tied teams.
b. When comparing records against a single team or a group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0 or 0-0).
3. Won-loss percentage of all Division I opponents.
4. Highest NET ranking of the teams. NET ranking of the previous week to be utilized.

B. Ties Involving more than Two Teams:
1. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular season.
a. When comparing records against the tied teams, teams will be seeded based on winning percentage among the group, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0 or 0-0). If all teams among the group are separated based on winning percentage, all ties are broken. If winning percentage among the group for any tied teams is equal, move to step b with those specific tied teams only (e.g. if there is a four-team tie, one team is 4-0, another is 3-1 and the last two are 2-2 among the group, the two teams that are 2-2 move to step b and the teams that are 4-0 and 3-1 assume the next two available highest seeds). Note: Teams can be separated from the top, middle or bottom.
b. If a team or teams are separated from the group based on step a, seeding for remaining teams among the group is not determined by head-to-head record vs. the remaining teams, but rather by taking all remaining teams to next tiebreaker.
2. If the remaining teams are still tied, then each tied team’s record shall be compared to the team occupying the highest position in the final regular-season standings, continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
a. When arriving at another pair of tied teams while comparing records, use each team’s record against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to their own tiebreaking procedures), rather than the performance against the individual tied teams.
b. When comparing records against a single team or group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0 or 0-0).
3. Won-loss percentage of Division I opponents.
4. Highest NET ranking of the teams. NET ranking of the previous week to be utilized.

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