Indiana basketball has landed just outside ESPN’s latest preseason top 25 for the 2026-27 season, sitting in the network’s “next five” after a shakeup at the top of the rankings.
The update came after a major national change: Dusty May’s move from Michigan to the Dallas Mavericks. May, a former IU basketball manager, had just won a national title with the Wolverines in April in his second Big Ten season, and his departure helped trigger movement throughout Jeff Borzello’s “way too early” list at ESPN.com.
Michigan, fresh off the 2025-26 national championship - the Big Ten’s first title since Michigan State in 2000 - dropped from No. 2 to No. 5 in the revised rankings.
Indiana is being viewed nationally as a success story from its portal class assembled in the spring, and the Hoosiers are expected to be led next season by Markus Burton and Aiden Sherrell. That was enough to put them in the group just outside the top 25, alongside Villanova, Purdue, Saint Louis and BYU.
The Big Ten is well represented near the top of the board. Illinois is the conference’s highest-ranked team, climbing four spots from No. 7 to No.
- Michigan State checks in at No. 9, giving the league two teams in the top 10.
USC sits just outside that group at No. 11, while Nebraska rounds out the Big Ten’s presence in the updated top 25 at No. 22.
At the top of ESPN’s preseason rankings, the top five is Florida, Duke, Illinois, UConn and Michigan.
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