IU basketball roundup: Early Big Ten power rankings, updated top 25s and more

As Big Ten rosters continue to come into focus for the 2026-27 season, more projections are being published for next winter.

Isaac Trotter of CBSSports.com published his “way too early” Big Ten basketball tiers for next season and is high on Indiana.

Trotter has the Hoosiers as his fifth-best Big Ten team behind Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State and USC.

Indiana is grouped with USC in “tier 2,” which is considered the “top-25 caliber club.”

The complete early forecast for the Big Ten is Illinois, Michigan, Michigan State, USC, Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio State, Purdue, UCLA, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Rutgers, Penn State and Northwestern.

DeVries, Wilkerson ranked in the top 100 NBA draft prospects per ESPN

Former IU starters Tucker DeVries and Lamar Wilkerson are currently on the NBA pre-draft workout circuit.

On Monday, DeVries and Wilkerson both worked out for Golden State.

While neither player is expected to be selected later this month in the 2026 NBA draft, both players are included in the top 100 in the latest prospect rankings by Jeremy Woo of ESPN.com.

Wilkerson checks in at No. 86 and DeVries is No. 87.

Both players are in the range of prospects who are likely to receive invites to the NBA Summer League and potentially earn a two-way contract for the 2026-27 NBA season.

Hoosiers outside the top 25 in updated ESPN.com preseason top 25

ESPN college basketball writer Jeff Borzello recently updated his preseason top 25 for the 2026-27 and did not include Indiana.

The Hoosiers are listed among five teams just outside the top 25, along with Purdue, Saint Louis, UCLA and BYU.

Borzello’s top five is Florida, Duke, Michigan, Illinois and UConn.

Outside of Michigan and Illinois, the other Big Ten teams in his top 25 are Michigan State at No. 8, USC at No. 12 and Nebraska at No. 22.

The full rankings are available here.

SBNation’s preseason top 25 includes Indiana

Meanwhile, over at SBNation, Mike Rutherford published a preseason top 25 for the 2026-27 season and did include Indiana.

The Hoosiers are No. 21 and here’s what Rutherford wrote about IU: “Darian DeVries didn’t exactly set the world on fire in his first year in Bloomington, but his offseason transfer portal haul has ignited some renewed faith that he could wind up being the long-awaited savior of Indiana basketball. Aiden Sherrell (Alabama), Samet Yigitoglu (SMU), Markus Burton (Notre Dame), Darren Harris (Duke) and Jaeden Mustaf (Georgia Tech) give the Hoosiers one of the three or four best portal classes in the country.”

The top five, according to Rutherford, are Florida, Illinois, Duke, Michigan and UConn.

Big Ten teams included in the top 25 outside of Illinois, Michigan and IU are Michigan State at No. 8, Nebraska at No. 22, USC at No. 24 and UCLA at No. 25.

Hoosiers also land in updated preseason rankings from Sports Illustrated

Kevin Sweeney also published a new preseason top 25 for SI.com and the Hoosiers were the last team in at No. 25.

“After a late-season collapse, Indiana badly needed a roster reset and talent injection for Darian DeVries’s second season,” Sweeney wrote. “Two high-priced frontcourt pieces in Aiden Sherrell (Alabama) and Samet Yigitoglu (SMU) give the Hoosiers the size they lacked a season ago, while Notre Dame transfer PG Markus Burton was one of the top scorers on the market this spring. How effectively (and how regularly, given depth concerns) Indiana can play Sherrell and Yigitoglu together will be intriguing to monitor.”

The SI rankings include Michigan at No. 2, Illinois at No. 4, Michigan State at No. 10, Nebraska at No. 20, USC at No. 22 and Purdue at No. 25.

The top five are Florida, Michigan, UConn, Illinois and Texas.

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