In 49 states, it’s just a game. In the state of Indiana, we need our own power rankings. Every week we’ll help settle the ongoing debate regarding who are the best college basketball teams in the state of Indiana.
Here are the state of Indiana NCAA Division 1 men’s college basketball power rankings for the week ended February 11, 2018:
Current Indiana teams in Joe Lunardi’s Bracketology: Purdue (1), Butler (8).
1. Purdue Boilermakers (23-4, 12-2) (B1G) – A tough week for Purdue, no doubt, but they lost to two really good teams in two really close games. The bigger question is what happened to their early swagger?
2. Butler Bulldogs (17-9, 7-6) (Big East) – Similar to Purdue, the Bulldogs lost two tough games to two tough teams. It’s hard to imagine that this year’s Bulldogs will have the March magic that we’ve seen in the past.
3. Indiana Hoosiers (14-12, 7-7) (B1G) – The defense is the story in Bloomington, as they have now held 3 straight opponents to more than 20 under their PPG average. Two wins on the week.
4. Ball State Cardinals (16-9, 7-5) (MAC) – The Cardinals took care of business this week against two middle of the road MAC teams and remain ahead of ND solely based on beating them at full strength in South Bend.
5. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (15-10, 5-7) (ACC) – The Irish break their 7 game skid with home wins over NIT bound Boston College and Florida State. Much more work to do to make the NCAA tournament.
6. Fort Wayne Mastodons (16-12, 5-6) (Summit) – Two more losses. Perhaps they could ask their opponents to wear Indiana uniforms? That seems to be the only thing that gets them to play to their ability.
7. Evansville Purple Aces (16-10, 6-8) (MVC) – The Aces earn a split on the week with a win over Valpo and a loss to Missouri State.
8. Indiana State Sycamores (11-15, 6-8) (MVC) – A tough home loss to conference leader Loyola Chicago and a bad home loss to Missouri State. The trend here is losing, as in 5 of 6.
9. Valparaiso Crusaders (13-14, 4-10) (MVC) – They did secure an upset win over Illinois State but upon further review the Redbirds were missing two of their leading scorers.
10. IUPUI Jaguars (8-17, 5-9) (Horizon)- They won! Against 7-20 Cleveland State. And then they lost to 7-20 Youngstown State (again).
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