Indiana Basketball: 2024-25 season preview for the Hoosiers

Schedule Outlook for the Hoosiers

The non-conference slate for the Hoosiers is relatively light, with the notable exception of the Battle 4 Atlantis over Thanksgiving weekend in The Bahamas. Indiana will open with a Louisville team that hopes to be much improved under Pat Kelsey the opening Wednesday. How well they fare in that one will determine their other two matchups in a field that includes teams like Arizona, Gonzaga, and Providence.

Big Ten play technically begins in early December when Indiana hosts Minnesota, but really gets rolling after the New Year with Rutgers on January 2nd. The late non-conference gives them ample tune-up opportunities to carry the momentum into conference action, and the January slate should be promising.

We'll learn about whether Indiana is actually ready to contend for a Big Ten Title with how they fare in late January and early February. They travel to Purdue and Wisconsin back-to-back, with a one-game respite in Assemby Hall before meeting up with Michigan State in East Lansing. The late conference season is fortunately concentrated heavily in Bloomington, which should help protect the Hoosiers from fading down the stretch in the way they did last season.

It will be interesting to see how Indiana fares against each of the Big Ten newcomers, with all four on their schedule in 2024-25. USC is first, in early January, with UCLA on Valentine's Day, and Oregon & Washington rounding things out in March.