Mid Major Top 25 Week 9

Bracket Buster's Mid Major Top 25 Week 9 on 01/01/24.

Jan 01, 2024

All rankings below are updated as of 01/01/24.

Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to our first Top 25 Mid Major ranking of 2024! Following the final’s break in the week previous, we’ve had some movement in our rankings, so let’s dive in.

New #1

Bracket Busters has a new #1 in our rankings, Memphis. Florida Atlantic suffered a heart-wrenching loss to Florida Gulf Coast on Saturday, which now joins their Bryant loss as something that just shouldn’t happen for a team that good. Meanwhile, Memphis continued to roll and defeated Austin Peay this past week.

KenPom still favors Florida Atlantic with a #21 ranking while listed Memphis at the 33 spot. Net Rankings also favors Florida Atlantic at #18 with Memphis at #40. This is where I disagree with computer analytics. Let’s breakdown each team’s schedule:

Memphis:
- Wins:
  - Jackson St (Home)
  - Missouri (Away)
  - Alabama St (Home)
  - Michigan (Neutral Site MTE)
  - #20 Arkansas (Neutral Site MTE)
  - VCU (Away)
  - #21 Texas A&M (Away)
  - #13 Clemson (Home)
  - #22 Virginia (Home)
  - Vanderbilt (Home)
  - Austin Peay (Home)
- Losses:
  - Villanova (Neutral Site MTE)
  - Ole Miss (Away)
Florida Atlantic
- Wins:
  - Loyola Chicago (Away)
  - Eastern Michigan (Home)
  - Bulter (Neutral Site MTE)
  - #12 Texas A&M (Neutral Site MTE)
  - Virginia Tech (Neutral Site MTE)
  - Liberty (Home)
  - Charleston (Home)
  - FIU (Home)
  - St Bonaventure (Neutral Site MTE)
  - #4 Arizona (Neutral Site MTE)
- Losses:
  - Bryant (Home)
  - #20 Illinois (Neutral Site MTE)
  - Florida Gulf Coast (Away)

Looking at this breakdown, Memphis has by far played more talented teams, however, where I’ll give credit to Florida Atlantic is they’ve only played 5 out of their 13 games at their home arena. Memphis has played 6 out of their 13 games at their home arena. There are a variety of other factors that go into the NET rankings & KenPom rankings, however, looking at just their schedules Memphis takes the cake.

Florida Atlantic’s loss to Bryant (NET Ranking #174 & KenPom #192) and Florida Gulf Coast (NET Ranking #255 & KenPom #277) are inferior compared to Memphis’ loss to Villanova (NET Ranking #26 & KenPom #22) & Ole Miss (NET Ranking #59 & KenPom #79). This alone is enough to move the needle for a #1 ranking in our Mid-Major Top 25.

Movement

Let’s discuss some other movement that happened this week.

Indiana St lost to Michigan State at East Lansing 87-75. Robbie Avila had a rough game, but Isiah Swope opened more people’s eyes to why he is one of the best players in the Missouri Valley by dropping 26 points against the Spartans. The Sycamores dropped in this week’s rankings from #6 → #8 this week more so due to the strong showings from Nevada & San Diego State rather than this loss. Nevada has moved on to 13-1 while San Diego State picked up their first AP Top 25 win of the year with an 84-74 win over #13 Gonzaga.

Our largest mover of the week is our pick for the best chance at a Cinderella story this year, McNeese going from #16 → #14. The Cowboys went to Ann Arbor and picked up their first win over a Big Ten school by defeating Michigan 87-76 on Friday night. Shahada Wells dropped 30 points to go along with 10 rebounds and 6 assists. This team is good. Enough said. If you are a sports better, I highly recommend selecting this team as an upset come March Madness. Depending on their seeding and bracket, this could easily be a Sweet 16 team. Will Wade is back.

The only newcomer of the week is Missouri State of the Missouri Valley Conference, while Evansville dropped out. Evansville took a 76-58 loss to Cincinnati on Friday despite leading by 8 at halftime. With their leading scorer Ben Humrichous and leading bench scorer Chuck Bailey, it’ll be a struggle for the Purple Aces who play the tough Indiana State Sycamores at Terra Haute on Wednesday. Missouri State was already teetering on the bubble of our rankings last week after their excellent 69-64 win at Saint Mary’s in the week prior.

Notable Movement: