Indiana’s place in ESPN’s latest bracketology took a small step backward Wednesday, with Joe Lunardi sliding the Hoosiers from a No. 7 seed in his July projection to a No. 8 seed for the 2027 NCAA tournament.
That update lands even as the roster for Darian DeVries’ second season is still coming together. Indiana played a July exhibition against a Canadian team and then went 4-0 at the FISU America Games in Lima, Peru, late last month, but the bigger roster-building work has been happening around that. The Hoosiers brought in seven transfers and four freshmen, giving DeVries a revamped group to work with after being hired in the spring of 2025.
The transfer haul is fronted by Notre Dame guard Markus Burton, along with Villanova’s Bryce Lindsay, Alabama’s Aiden Sherrell, SMU’s Samet Yigitoglu and Duke transfer Darren Harris. Indiana also added Georgia Tech transfer Jaeden Mustaf and Maryland Eastern Shore transfer Justin Monden.
On the freshman side, the Hoosiers signed Prince-Alexander Moody, Vaughn Karvala, Trevor Manhertz and Clemens Sokolov.
Indiana is also expected to return sophomore Trent Sisley and is hoping to get Sam Alexis back after he was recently granted a preliminary injunction that would allow him a fifth season of eligibility.
The Hoosiers have missed the last three NCAA tournaments, and Lunardi’s updated projection keeps them on the board as they try to end that drought next March.
Indiana is one of 12 Big Ten teams in Lunardi’s latest offseason bracket, which he updates monthly. The conference list also includes Illinois as a No. 1 seed, Michigan and Michigan State as No. 2 seeds, Purdue, USC and Nebraska as No. 6 seeds, UCLA as a No. 7 seed, Ohio State as a No. 8 seed, Wisconsin as a No. 9 seed, and Iowa and Oregon as No. 10 seeds.
Maryland is among the first four teams out.
At the top of the bracket, Arizona, Duke and Florida join Illinois as the other projected No. 1 seeds.
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For Reed Bailey, the update only reinforces how much has changed since his name first entered the conversation. He spent one season at Indiana before moving on and is now settled into a new stop in the Big East, leaving the Hoosiers to sort through the ripple effects of a ruling that reopened a path he no longer plans to use. [Read more 🡒]
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For now, the athletic department is still working behind the scenes on the financing for the larger capital project, which means the public view of the plan is still limited. Even so, the direction is clear enough: Indiana wants to update the stadium without losing what already makes it usable on game days, and the growing enthusiasm around Cignetti has only strengthened the case for getting it done. [Read more 🡒]