Top 25 Mid-Majors: Saint Mary's Back on Top, UC Irvine Climbs
Saint Mary's is back on top of the Top 25 Mid-Major Rankings. UC Irvine continues to climb the rankings, up to No. 7 after the Anteaters historic start.
We are officially a third of the way through the 2024-2025 season and we are continuing to see teams separate themselves from the rest of the pack. The Mountain West suffered more tough losses, all but surely eliminating any chance of another five bid season. Memphis was ranked 16th in the AP Top 25 Poll, but suffered a loss to Arkansas State. UC Irvine is flying under the radar as of the toughest teams in Mid-Major college basketball. Utah State, Rhode Island, Loyola Chicago, Drake, and UC Irvine all remain undefeated. Let’s recap what else happened across mid-major college basketball this week.
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The Saint Mary’s Gaels are back at the No. 1 spot this week among the Mid Major Top 25 Rankings. The Gaels traveled to Salt Lake City and took down the Utah Utes 72-63. The Gaels are now 9-1 on the season after taking down Utah and UTSA this week. Paulius Murauskas stepped up against Utah with 29 points, 7 rebounds with Mitchell Saxen playing just 10 minutes before fouling out. With finals week upon us, games will be slow this week, but Saint Mary’s will take on Boise State next weekend. The Gaels swapped back into first after Memphis took a loss against a tough Arkansas State team on Sunday evening.
Coming into the week, the Memphis Tigers reached No. 16 in the AP Top 25 poll following their dominant performance in Maui. They started off the week with a nice 81-71 win over an underrated Louisiana Tech team. However as mentioned, the Tigers fell to Arkansas State on Sunday 85-72. For the casual basketball fan, they are going to see a 13 point loss to an unranked team from the Sun Belt and think it’s a bad loss, but this Arkansas State team is tough. The Red Wolves just dropped out of our Top 25 last week after a couple questionable losses to Hofstra and Rice, however, keep in mind that this same team went toe-to-toe with Alabama for the entire 40 minutes of the game. This isn’t a bad loss at all in my opinion, especially once Arkansas State gets into conference play and continues to dominate. Come March, it won’t hurt the Tigers resume. On the flipside, this was an excellent win for Arkansas State, but not quite enough to get them back on our list as those two losses previously mentioned stick out a bit. If we were doing a Top 26 ranking, the Red Wolves would be sitting at No. 26. They have two great opportunities this week against UT Arlington and UAB. If they sweep those, they’ll be back in the Top 25 next week.
UC Irvine climbed up to No. 7 this week as they continued to shine as one of the best mid-major teams in the entire country. The Anteaters took down Cal State Bakersfield in a dominating 82-66 victory. This one win wasn’t the only reason the Anteaters are now in the Top 10, it’s the data behind their team that’s driving the surge. They are now up to #52 in KenPom, 19th in Defensive Efficiency, 25th in NET Rankings, and they’ve allowed more than 60 points scored just four times out of nine games. They’ve allowed more than 66 points just once. The Anteaters are right there with North Texas as one of the best defensive teams in the country, but they don’t have “flashy” wins, so many people don’t realize the talent of this team. The Anteaters have some great non-conference opportunities left including Oregon State and Belmont, both on the road. If you haven’t yet, you need to buy stock in this team.
Two new teams entered the rankings this week in Rhode Island and UC San Diego. Rhode Island has been one of the largest surprises in college basketball thus far. The Rams were picked to finish 11th in the A-10, but they are now 9-0 on the season including a 69-63 win over Providence this week. They are currently 83rd in KenPom and 54th in the NET. Seniors Sebastian Thomas and David Green are both averaging over 16 points per game so far, while Thomas is also averaging 3.9 rebounds, 7.3 assists, and 2.5 steals per game. Keep in mind, this is the same Rams team that dismantled the College of Charleston 91-53 a couple of weeks ago. The Rams will have a few more solid non-conference opportunities over Brown, Temple, and the A-10 killers, Central Connecticut State.
UC San Diego is quietly doing work behind UC Irvine in the Big West. The Tritons are 8-2 with some solid wins over Toledo, James Madison, and Santa Barbara. Their only two losses were a five point loss to San Diego State and a 13 point loss to Seattle U. The Tritons are up to 87th in KenPom, with the 79th overall Offensive Efficiency. In the NET they sit at 72nd. Similarly to Rhode Island, the Tritons have two seniors dominating in Tyler McGhie and Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones. Tait-Jones is averaging 16.6 points, 5.7 rebounds, three assists, and 1.2 steals per game. McGhie is averaging 16 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.2 steals per game. They’ll take on Idaho this week before a golden opportunity against Utah State the following week.
Columbia and McNeese both fell out this week. Columbia suffered their first loss of the season to the hands of U-Albany 88-73. Justin Neely racked up 18 points and 13 rebounds for the Great Danes as the Lions’ star Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa was held to just 11 points. Unfortunately, this loss was enough for us to move them out of the Top 25 and back onto the bubble. There are just too many good teams to rank and the strength of schedule (364th) is hard to over look.
McNeese has been disappointing this season so far, even giving the benefit of the doubt with their strength of schedule sitting at 27th per KenPom. The Cowboys went 1-1 on the week, defeated non-DI LeTourneau 103-69, but falling to Santa Clara 74-67. Santa Clara has been greatly disappointing as well, but perhaps this is the bounce back with the Broncos needed as they followed up with an 81-66 win over Fresno State. For McNeese, they have one of the most talented rosters among mid-majors, however, they just haven’t pieced it together. Christian Schumate has started to snap out of his cold streak as he is up to 11.8 points per game, however, DJ Richards is shooting just 33.3% from 3pt and averaging just 7.3 points per game. As a team, only one player is shooting over 40% from 3pt and that’s Alyn Breed who has played just two games and attempted four three-point shots. They are still piecing together some solid offensive performances, but defensively, they are struggling. They rank 116th in Defensive Efficiency, which is generous according to my eye test. The Cowboys have plenty of opportunities left against Mississippi State and Louisiana, but the dreams of an at-large bid are over. They’ll have to win the Southland to go dancing in March.
Notable Movement
UC Irvine - #12 → #7
Rhode Island - NR → #21
New Mexico - #7 → #13
Dropped Out
Columbia
McNeese
On the Bubble
Arkansas State
Columbia
Belmont
Murray State
South Dakota State