Top 25 Mid-Majors: Saint Mary's Returns to No. 1
New teams like George Mason, Lipscomb, and Miami Ohio join the Top 25 as Santa Clara climbs and Dayton struggles. Catch all the week’s key updates.
What a week for college basketball. We saw Santa Clara take down Gonzaga, Utah State and New Mexico take losses in the Mountain West, Dayton continues to not look like the same team, while UC Irvine, Saint Mary’s and Bradley all continue to win. We’ve got three new faces entering the Top 25 ranks this week, so let’s dive in!
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Saint Mary’s is quietly in the midst of a six game winning streak in the WCC. The Gaels are flying under the radar as Gonzaga stumbling has been quite the story right now. In fact, as of right now Gonzaga is tied for third behind Saint Mary’s and San Francisco (who has also bounced back to 16-5 after a bit of a stumble). The Gaels are up to 27th in KenPom with their 16-3 record and they’ve been taking care of business. This past week, they only played Pepperdine where they won by 24. That brought their average WCC win up to a margin of 24.8 points. They are cruising right now as their offense sits at 37th in the country and their defense at 29th. They don’t have any AP Top 25 wins, but they are 3-3 in quad 1 & 2 games, they should be safely securing a two-bid WCC this season even with Gonzaga at just 4-6 in quad 1 & 2.
The Gaels do have a bit of a test this week against San Francisco on Thursday and Washington State on Saturday. The Gaels are projected to win both games, as the Dons are just 2-3 on the road, but neither game is going to be a walk in the park. Make sure to pencil both games this week in as must watch.
Among the rest of the top five, everyone just shifted down one spot. Utah State took their first loss of the Mountain West slate against UNLV 65-62. It was an abysmal last five and a half minutes of the game for the Aggies as they were held to just two points during that time. UNLV also just knocked off San Diego State, so fortunately for the Aggies, not a bad a loss which could continue to improve.
Memphis suffered their first loss in the AAC to Temple, 88-81. Temple is quietly 12-6 and 4-1 in the American right now with wins over Rice, Wichita state, No. 18 Memphis, and Tulane. It’s not like the Owls are playing the bottom of the conference right now. Not a terrible loss for the Tigers and there is no need to pull the emergency cord. They do need to get it done against Wichita State and UAB this week.
New Mexico also took their first loss of the Mountain West against San Jose State 71-70. This was not a great loss for the Lobos, but they are 15-4 and 7-1 in the Mountain West still. They shot just 3-15 from beyond the arc which proved to be the difference maker in this one. They bounced back with a furious win over Boise State 84-65. The Lobos take on Fresno State and a red hot UNLV team this week.
VCU keeps winning as they are in the middle of a four game winning streak in the Atlantic 10. The Rams took down Saint Louis 78-62 and Saint Joseph’s 78-69. The trio of Joe Bamisile, Jack Clark, and Max Shulga has been incredible to watch. The Rams will take on Rhode Island and St. Bonaventure this week, both on national TV with the Rams vs Rams game on CBS Sports Network on Tuesday and the Bonnies game on ESPNU on Friday. If they can sweep these two games, they’ll start to enter No. 1 conversations.
As for the rest of the top ten spots, Bradley and Santa Clara both entered the race. Bradley is 16-3 and 7-1 in the Missouri Valley. The Braves put on a clinic against Indiana State winning 118-65, then taking down Murray State on the road 74-61. The Braves are the clear favorites in the Missouri Valley, with their only loss coming from Drake and their other two losses keep improving from Washington State and Santa Clara. The Braves look to stay hot when they travel to Nashville to take on Belmont who is going to be sneaky in the Valley and then have a home game against a struggling Illinois State team.
Santa Clara is having a time right now. Last week, they entered the Top 25 at No. 17 and now they are up to No. 10. The Broncos are 13-7 and 5-2 in the WCC with their most notable win yet over No. 16 Gonzaga at the Kennel. This is a deep team with five players averaging at least 11 points per game and four players averaging two or more assists. Looking at their losses on the season, only Nevada was a blow out. They lost by 13 to Arizona State, eight to North Dakota State, seven to Washington, three to San Francisco and three to Loyola Marymount this week. The LMU loss wasn’t ideal for the Broncos, but they are going to have to win the WCC tournament to earn a bid to the Big Dance anyway, so a three point loss to a team right behind Oregon State is not terrible. This has been one of the most fun seasons to watch in the WCC and it continues this week as Santa Clara takes on Washington State and Oregon State this week.
Outside of the Top 10, Dayton lost yet again. The Flyers are now 12-6 and 2-3 in the Atlantic 10. This is reminding me of Memphis last season where the Tigers got up to 10th in the AP poll, but completely fell apart in the AAC. So far, they’ve lost to George Washington by 20, UMass by four, and George Mason by eight. The loss against George Mason should’ve been by more, but Dayton hit a few threes late in the game to make the margin look more respectful. They bounced back with a two point win over Loyola Chicago, but I just don’t know what happened to this team. It doesn’t get easier this week as they face Duquesne on the road and the Dukes have been playing their best basketball as of late as they sit 4-1 in the A-10. The Flyers will also take on a Saint Joseph’s team in which could be one of the best teams in the A-10 or one of the worst, so if they face off against a hot Saint Joes, there’s a chance the Flyers could go 1-1 this week or even 0-2.
Three teams did drop out this week in Rhode Island, Furman, and George Washington. As the A-10 continued to unfortunately drift towards a one-bid status, George Washington dropped back-to-back games to slide to 2-3 in conference, while Rhode Island dropped a game to Loyola Chicago and narrowly took down Davidson. George Washington fell to a tough Duquesne team who as mentioned, has figured it out after a miserable start to the season and took a three point loss to George Mason. Neither were necessarily a bad loss here, but after a hot start on the season (admittedly against a weak strength of schedule) the Revolutionaries are now 13-5 on the season and tied for eighth in the A-10.
For Rhode Island, consistency has been an issue as of late. In the A-10, they’ve lost by 12 to Duquesne, won by three against George Mason, lost by eight to George Washington, won by three against Richmond, lost by four against Loyola Chicago, and won by two against Davidson. The Rams have been all over the place. The ceiling is still there, they just need to piece is together, but that’s going to be difficult this week against VCU and a La Salle team that’s proven capable of knocking off opponents.
Replacing those three teams, we have three brand new faces to the poll in Lipscomb, George Mason, and Miami Ohio. George Mason is now 14-5 and 5-1 in the A-10 to sit in first place, just like we all expected. The Patriots are peaking at the right time. This week, they took down Dayton 67-59 and George Washington 80-77 in a double-overtime thriller. There were some questions around how they’d recover with the loss of Keyshawn Hall to UCF, but they’ve overcome those question marks. The Patriots are up to 83rd in KenPom and have the 26th best defense in the country.
Lipscomb has been on our radar for a while, but their record hadn’t been in their favor. The Bisons have won three games in a row, they sit at 13-6 overall and 5-1 in the Atlantic Sun, which is good enough to be tied for first. This team has had some close losses this year. They lost to Arkansas by 16, but it was truthfully closer than that, they then lost by a point to Belmont, five to Western Kentucky, two to Middle Tennessee, and two to Queens. Amidst their hot streak, the Bisons are up to 74th in KenPom where they sit at 85th in offense and 71st in defense. They’ll look to move to 7-1 in the A-Sun against a tough North Alabama team and a high-octane offense behind freshman star Layne Taylor in Central Arkansas.
We’ve got some MACtion for the first time this season in the Top 25 poll in Miami Ohio. The RedHawks are undefeated in the MAC, tied with Akron at 5-0. They sit at 13-4 on the season and are carrying a seven game winning streak coming into this week. Their four losses include Wright State, Michigan, Indiana, and Vermont, but they’ve been impressive in the MAC. During their 5-0 stretch, they are outscoring opponents by 13.2 points and Xavier transfer Kam Craft has been outstanding. Craft is averaging 15.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists on 46.5% shooting overall and 43.5% from deep on the season. He’s struggled a bit the last two games, but he started off MAC play with 20, 28, and 23 point performances in his first three games. The computer metrics don’t love them as much as we do, as they sit 146th in KenPom and 125th in the NET, but they’ll look to continue to move up against Bowling Green and fellow top dog Akron this week.
Notable Movement
Saint Mary’s - #4 → #1
Santa Clara - #17 → #10
Dropped Out
Rhode Island
Furman
George Washington
On the Bubble
Charleston
Saint Louis
Cleveland State
McNeese
Northern Colorado