Each Week, I will be posting my Mid-Major Top-25 highlighting the top 25 teams from non-power conferences. These rankings exclude the A10, AAC and WCC. Also included each week will be a breakdown of all notable mid major notes around the country.
Mid-Major Top-25
- New Mexico St
- Nevada
- Boise State
- Middle Tennessee
- UNLV
- SDSU Jack Rabbits
- Hawaii
- SF Austin
- ULL
- Wyoming
- Northern Kentucky
- Wright State
- Grand Canyon
- Murray State
- Montana
- Missouri State
- Western Kentucky
- Buffalo
- UT Arlington
- Lipscomb
- Wofford
- East Tenn State
- William & Mary
- Radford
- Oakland
Mid-Major Notes
- Loyola Chicago has struggled so far in conference play, and they suffered another loss, this time to Indiana State. However, they got back star Clayton Cluster from injury, and he helped out in win over UNI. Loyola should get back on track and start to control the Missouri Valley if Cluster plays to his potential.
- South Dakota is 4 loss team on the year and they beat another 4-loss team in Western Illinois. However, they are still behind South Dakota State for the best team in the Summit League. We also learned that SDSU is better because a triangle of games where SDSU beat North Dakota State as South Dakota fell to them. Confusing, but the fact of the matter is that SDSU is on top of the Summit League so far.
- Middle Tennessee struggles in an overtime win over FIU, but they are still top 5 in mid-major ranks.
- Northern Colorado’s hot streak comes to a close with a loss to Montana State who is rising in the conference. This game lost N-Colorado the lead of the tight Big Sky conference as Montana takes over the top spot. Montana and Northern Colorado then met later in the week to settle their differences, and Montana went on to win. Also in top Big Sky play, Portland State comes back to beat Idaho in an insane ending.
- Bucknell has been up and down this year, but they are easily still in the running for the Patriot League Championship and a win @ Army really helped.
- Charleston had the lead of the CAA until they fell to Drexel in overtime. The new leader is William & Mary who entered my top 25 this week.
- The Horizon Leagues top spot was up for grabs in a game between Oakland and Northern Kentucky. NKU went into the Golden Grizzles beautiful O’rena for a win to prove they are the best team in the league. Oakland cannot figure out how to close out games lately, and it showed even more as they fell in overtime to Wright State to close out a bad week.
- Buffalo is hitting on all cylinders as the beat a very good Ball State team by 20.
- Penn wins a game over Princeton to hold down the top spot in the Ivy League.
- Radford is coming alive in the Big South as they beat UNC Ashville by 20.
- In an intriguing Ohio Valley game of 5 loss teams, Jax State wins @ Belmont.
- 112 points were scored by Western Kentucky in a rout of a very very good Marshall team.
- Boise State’s win streak comes to close as they lose a tough game by 1 point in overtime at Wyoming, who recently fell to the Mountain West leader in Nevada. This loss is crushing for the Broncos who had at-large tourney berth potential. UNLV may have also ended their slim at large tournament hopes with a bad loss to Utah State.
- Utah Valley is on a five-game win streak, and they are undefeated in the WAC with a beautiful 30 point win over CSU Bakersfield who has not been terrible this year.
- Central Michigan may not be as good as I thought as they lost horribly to Kent State by 16, and fell to Eastern Michigan in MAC play. Also in MAC play Western Michigan falls to Toledo by 23 in a battle of hot and cold teams who are now both 10-6.
- Missouri State drops a game to Illinois State who was desperate for a win at home.
- Colgate takes clear control of the Patriot league for now with a big win over Navy.
