The day after Curt Cignetti was hired as Indiana’s head coach in late 2023, he sat down for an interview at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis with a Big Ten Network crew as part of the runup to the league’s championship game that year.

“I figured I had to make this trip up here, since we’ll be playing in this game next year,” Cignetti said.

It was a shocking statement for the coach of a team that had never reached the championship in the event’s 14 years of existence and it proved ever so slightly too ambitious – IU finished third in the 18-team league in Cignetti’s first season.

Two years later, however, the Hoosiers are on the cusp of making their coach’s boast come true. With a win in their regular-season finale, they will clinch a trip to the championship game, to be held barely an

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