6-Banner Sunday: Big Ten rolling in the 2026 NCAA tournament

• Staff

• 1h ago

 

Welcome to another edition of 6-Banner Sunday, a joint production between The Assembly Call and Inside the Hall, where we highlight the five most essential IU sports stories of the past week. 6-Banner Sunday is written by Ari Shifron.

IU’s basketball season is over, but the NCAA tournament’s first weekend is nearly complete. With the 2025-26 season coming to a close, Inside the Hall had a series wrapping up each rotation player’s performance.

Additionally, Indiana is still one of the most popular college basketball programs according to Nielsen. Several former IU players also turned in strong seasons.

Here is what is in this week’s edition:

• Big Ten performing well in 2026 NCAA tournament
• Inside the Hall’s That’s A Wrap series
• IU is one of the top 10 most popular college programs
• How former Hoosiers fared this season
• Podcast on the Brink and Back Home Network shows
• Hoosier Roundup

Banner #1 – Big Ten performing well in 2026 NCAA tournament

The Hoosiers’ season is over after once again failing to secure a spot in March Madness as expected. This was the third straight year and eighth time in 10 seasons IU has found itself in this position.

However, the NCAA tournament continues. With NIL seemingly widening the gap between mid-major and power five teams, the competition has featured fewer upsets than usual.

There have still been some thrilling results. The Big Ten sent nine teams to the dance, and two of the most exciting games happened early on Thursday involving them. The first was Ohio State losing a nailbiter to TCU and the other was Wisconsin getting knocked off late in a thriller against High Point, which was the only true ‘Cinderella’ to win in the first round.

However, after these two disappointments, it has been all positives for the conference, with Illinois, Michigan and Michigan State all winning two games to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Finally, Nebraska also advanced to the second weekend in a terrific matchup with Vanderbilt.

Purdue, UCLA, and Iowa will look to join these four other league programs in the Sweet Sixteen with games today. In other notable results, Duke nearly became the rare one-seed to lose in the first round, but survived Siena. Meanwhile, their arch-rival, North Carolina, had a meltdown against VCU with inexcusable late turnovers. In another blueblood thriller, Kentucky hit a prayer to force overtime and eventually beat Santa Clara.

The only mid-major squad still with a chance at the Sweet Sixteen is Utah State, which has a very tall task against top-seeded Arizona today. Lastly, to emphasize the mostly ‘chalk’ results of this year’s tourney so far, budget-rich Texas is the only double-digit seed to advance to the second weekend at this point.

Banner #2 – Inside the Hall’s That’s A Wrap series

With the season now over for IU, Inside the Hall did a series breaking down each of the team’s rotation players in detail.

Trent Sisley, Jasai Miles, Nick Dorn, Tayton Conerway, Reed Bailey, Conor Enright, Sam Alexis, Tucker DeVries, and Lamar Wilkerson were featured.

Banner #3 – IU is one of the top 10 most popular college programs

The popularity of IU’s basketball program has seemingly not faded despite its struggles. Using multiple factors, Nielsen ranked the Hoosiers the 8th most popular program in college basketball. Michigan was fourth, Illinois seventh, and Ohio State ninth, as the other Big Ten programs to crack the top-10, with Duke taking the top spot.

Banner #4 – How former Hoosiers fared this season

Eleven former Hoosiers competed on other college basketball teams this year. These players were Kaleb Banks (DePaul), Kanaan Carlyle (Florida Atlantic), Gabe Cupps (Ohio State), Logan Duncomb (Winthrop), CJ Gunn (DePaul), Dallas James (Morgan State), Mackenzie Mgbako (Texas A&M), Jakai Newton (Georgia State), Malik Reneau (Miami [FL]) Myles Rice (Maryland), and Bryson Tucker (Washington).

Carlyle, Duncomb, Gunn, and Reneau were by far the most successful, averaging double figures. Team-wise, Cupps, Mgbako, and Reneau made it to March Madness, with Reneau the only one remaining as his Hurricanes look to upset Purdue today.

Banner #5 – Podcast on the Brink and Back Home Network shows

Inside the Hall’s Podcast on the Brink returned this week. On it, Crimson Cast’s Scott Caulfield discussed IU’s 2025-26 season.

The Back Home Network itself has many shows. As a result, it was on air many times this week with programming.

Banner #6 – Hoosier Roundup

• Softball continued its hot start to the season. After losing to Rutgers, they swept the rest of their results this week, knocking off IU Indy and taking two from Maryland to open that series. At 24-6, their RPI sits around 60, which is well within range for a fourth straight NCAA tournament appearance.

• Baseball had its best week of the spring to date (outside of some unfortunate injury news), knocking off SEC power Vanderbilt on the road and taking two from Minnesota to open that series. Their RPI improved into the top 70 after sitting well outside the top 100 last week. However, at just 10-12, a second straight year of missing the NCAA tournament seems most likely barring a huge turnaround in the second half of the season. Also, the Big Ten announced a new format for the conference tournament in late May.

• Water Polo beat Pomona-Pitzer and San Jose State but lost to UC San Diego and Cal.

• Women’s tennis beat Minnesota but lost to Northwestern.

• Men’s tennis beat Washington but lost to Ohio State.

• Swimming and Diving saw the women finish 7th nationally at the NCAA championships.

• Wrestling finished 21st at the NCAA championships.

• Women’s golf finished 4th at the Valspar Augusta Invitational.

• Men’s golf finished tied for 12th at the Schenkel Invitational.

• Rowing concluded its opening weekend at the Oak Ridge Cardinal Invitational.

• Finally, football will show off its national championship trophy with a tour around Indiana. As a result of the sports success, Scott Dolson was honored as the athletic director of the year by NACDA and coach Curt Cignetti will drive the pace car at the Indy 500.

Now go enjoy yourself a 6-Banner Sunday.

Aaron (Ari) Shifron
Assembly Call Contributor

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