The No. 34 IU women's tennis team (17-6, 6-3) is in fifth place in the Big Ten and has the potential to earn a first round bye in the Big Ten Tournament if the Hoosiers can finish the season as one of the top four teams in the conference. Indiana faces No. 47 Illinois at home on Friday and travels to No. 16 Northwestern on Sunday.
A win against the Wildcats (13-8, 7-2) is critical for IU's postseason. Northwestern is tied for third place in the conference and the Wildcats are only one win ahead of the Hoosiers.
"Every team is dinged up at this time of the year so a bye is really big and that's why you normally don't see teams that don't get a bye make it to the finals," Loring said. "It's the only time of the year when a team would play four matches in four days. Even in the NCAA Tournament there's a day off in the middle of the tournament so you would in the NCAA Championships play four matches in five days so it's tough."
Loring said that if Indiana defeats Northwestern then the Hoosiers will definitely make the NCAA Championships.
"We've got a lot of reasons to play well in that match," he said.
Loring said that IU doesn't have anything to lose in its match against Northwestern.
"We're playing on the road against a team ranked way ahead of us so we'll just go out there and try our best," he said. "We've done it twice before on the road or at a neutral site. We're not going to be intimidated because we've already played Michigan, who beat them (Northwestern) and I believe Duke beat them too."
"It's one of those matches where we can just go for it," Loring said.
He acknowledged that Indiana hasn't defeated Northwestern in "a while," and a win against a perennial top 15 team would exemplify how much Indiana has improved since last season.
In 2011-12, the Hoosiers were 4-7 in the Big Ten, finished seventh in the conference, and had freshmen playing in the No. 3 through No. 6 singles positions.
"Everybody has just played a little bit better," Loring said. "It's basically the same time minus two of the starters. Kayla (Fujimoto) and Evgeniya (Vertesheva) were both starters last year so it's pretty amazing when you consider that we don't have a bunch of new people at the top of the lineup."
"Basically everybody except for Leslie is playing higher in the lineup than they did last year so it just shows how much we have improved," he said.
