Mid Major Top 25 (12/25)
Bracket Buster's Mid Major Top 25 week of 12/25/23.
All rankings below are updated as of 12/25/23.
There wasn’t much movement in the top 6 teams this week. Everyone did their job and beat the teams they should have been favored to win, however FAU showed the world why they are the best mid-major in the country by delivering one of the best games of the season in their 96-95 victory over #4 Arizona in double overtime. Johnell Davis dropped 35 points in the win leading Florida Atlantic to their new #7 ranking as of the Christmas Day AP Top-25. Meanwhile, Memphis faced a nail-biter against a 4-8 Vanderbilt team that went down to the final 3 seconds in which Vanderbilt had a chance to tie it or win the game.
The largest mover this week was Nevada. The Wolf Pack is now on a 5 game winning streak with wins over Weber St, Hawaii, Temple, TCU, and Georgia Tech. Kenan Blackshear and Jarod Lucas combined for 50 of Nevada’s 72 points in their 72-64 victory over Georgia Tech, 39 points in the team’s 88-75 victory over TCU, and 41 points in their 80-56 win over Temple. Needless to say the Wolf Pack looked dominate in the Diamond Head Classic this week. They’ll be ranked in the AP Top 25 in no time.
Appalachian State took the biggest drop of the week going from #16 last week to #20 this week after their 76-63 loss to UNC Asheville. They allowed Josh Banks to shoot 9/11 from 3pt range in the first half alone and Drew Pemper to capture a triple-double. You’re not going to see many stat lines where one player scores 30 points in one half and another gets a triple-double. The Mountaineers are still a great team and they can absolutely bounce back from this loss, but they are now at 9-3 with losses to Northern Illinois and UNC Asheville. However, UNC Asheville is turning it on right now as they beat both App State and an excellent Kennesaw St team by 9, in which the final score shows it closer than that game really was. By the end of the season, this might not look like a bad loss.
San Francisco and Evansville kept rolling this week with victories over their lesser opponents. The Dons drilled both North Arizona & Fresno State this week to bounce back from a one point loss to an excellent Utah State team. Meanwhile the Aces defeated both UT Martin & Tennessee Tech from the Ohio Valley Conference this week. UT Martin pushed Evansville to keep up with a faster tempo, but the Aces regathered and pummeled Tenn Tech into the ground in the next game. The Dons finish off non-conference with Mississippi Valley State which has yet to defeat a D1 opponent, and the Aces finish off with Cincinnati which be a great resume boosting win.
Entering the Top-25 rankings this week are both George Mason & Samford. George Mason knocked off a red-hot Tulane team 69-66 this week to move to 10-2 on the season. Their only losses were 54-49 to Charlotte & 87-66 to a #17 Tennessee team. They have 10 wins over some very good mid-majors including Toledo, Tulane, South Dakota St, and more. Samford has now won 11 games in a row over, 9 of which were against legitimate D1 opponents. This includes a 99-93 win over Belmont, 79-61 win over Valparaiso, and 87-65 over Texas Southern. They are winning by an average margin of nearly 24 points a game, and if you take out the close Belmont game, a margin of 25.5 points a game. They are an excellent offensive team that could be a very tough 14 or 15 seed come March Madness.
Notable Movement:
Nevada: #13 → #7
Appalachian State: #16 → #20
San Francisco: #23 → #18
UNC Wilmington: #20 → #17
George Mason: NR → #24
Samford: NR → #25
Dropped Out:
Louisiana Tech
Kennesaw St
On the Bubble:
Louisiana Tech
Kennesaw St
Boise St
Radford
Belmont
Missouri St
Longwood
Davidson
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