The state of Indiana consistently has quality NCAA Basketball programs and it’ll be the same for next season. How do all nine D-i schools rank for 2020-21?
Butler, Indiana, Notre Dame and Purdue are coming off of interesting seasons in 2019-20. More so, each has seen unexpected and even more interesting offseason developments that have changed the way the state of Indiana’s top programs will look at the upcoming NCAA Basketball season.
Butler lost it’s top two scorers to graduation in Kamar Baldwin and Sean McDermott. That was then compounded by the transfers of Jordan Tucker and Khalif Battle, two guys expected to play significant roles in 2020-21.
Indiana was looking primed to make its return to the NCAA tournament after a three-season hiatus, but then Justin Smith entered the transfer portal in early May. Almost simultaneously, one of the top 2021 recruits in the country in Khristian Lander’s reclassified and will be eligible for the Hoosiers in the 2020-21 season.
Notre Dame, like Butler, was hit hard by the graduation of its two best players in John Mooney and TJ Gibbs, but not all is lost for the Irish as they will activate Stanford transfer Cormac Ryan, a former top-60 recruit. Mike Brey also signed a sit-one, play-two transfer in Trey Wertz (Santa Clara) who fits his offensive scheme perfectly.
Purdue also took a couple of blows with the losses of Matt Haarms and Nojel Eastern to BYU and Michigan, respectively. That’s a total of 14 points and nine rebounds per game between the two and should be replaceable. Nonetheless, somebody is going to have to step up and cover those contributions.
The BIG 4 college programs in the state are not the only teams that have hopes of making the NCAA tournament this coming March of 2021. The tradition-rich basketball community has other teams with an argument to be the best in the Hoosier state. What are the team rankings in Indiana concerning all of the D-I schools? Let’s take a deep dive.