The One Where Norse Fans Hate Me
A week after Milwaukee remained undefeated in Horizon League play with a sweep of IUPUI, Northern Kentucky returned to action and returned the favor by staying undefeated with a pair of wins against Milwaukee. With that said, NKU still won’t be appearing in this week’s rankings because the team has played less than half of its Horizon League games.
Outiside of Detroit Mercy – which suspended its season – nobody else is out of this week’s rankings.
Here’s where things stand:
| Team | Rank | LW | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee Panthers | 1 | 1 | – |
| IUPUI Jaguars | 2 | 2 | – |
| Green Bay Phoenix | 3 | 3 | – |
| Wright State Raiders | 4 | 4 | – |
| Cleveland State Vikings | 5 | 8 | +3 |
| Oakland Golden Grizzlies | 6 | 5 | -1 |
| Youngstown State Penguins | 7 | 6 | -1 |
| Robert Morris Colonials | 8 | 7 | -1 |
| UIC Flames | 9 | 9 | – |
| Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons | 10 | 10 | – |
With NKU still sidelined, Milwaukee remained at the top of this week’s Power Rankings. Each of the other three teams in the top four has lost multiple games to teams Milwaukee already swept – or has been swept by Milwaukee – in recent weeks.
IUPUI remains in second place in the power rankings after earning a split with Green Bay last weekend. The Jaguars are just 1-3 in the team’s last four games, but a losses to Green Bay and Milwaukee are much more understandable than losses to Cleveland State and Robert Morris with how unbalanced the league has been all season.
Green Bay solidifies its place in this week’s Northern Kentucky-less power rankings with the win over IUPUI. The Phoenix already had a lead on Wright State last week after the Raiders were unexpectedly swept while Green Bay wound up with a surprise split. Green Bay’s quality victory widened that gap on a weekend where Wright State couldn’t do much to counteract it.
As mentioned, Wright State probably didn’t have anywhere to move but down last weekend because each of the teams above the Raiders has already absolutely clobbered winless Purdue Fort Wayne. The Raiders won both games, maintaining what should be a fairly solid fourth place among teams eligible for this week’s rankings.
With a weekend sweep of Oakland after beating Green Bay the Saturday prior, Cleveland State makes the biggest move in this week’s rankings despite its sub-.500 record. The Vikings replaced a weekend series against Detroit Mercy with an impromptu game against Mercyhurst, while Youngstown State and Oakland both play teams in the bottom three of the rankings. As a result, there probably won’t be enough information to move anybody currently below CSU up next week.
Despite an 8-6 record in Horizon League play, Oakland dropped below 5-7 Cleveland State after being swept by the Vikings last weekend. Four wins over Detroit Mercy and Purdue Fort Wayne coming into that series don’t move the needle for the Golden Grizzlies.
Youngstown State is 6-1 in its last 7 games, but agains strength of schedule needs to be considered. Four of those wins were against UIC and the loss is to 3-9 Robert Morris. Oakland is the only team with a winning record YSU beat in that stretch, and OU beat the Penguins a day before the current run started.
Robert Morris seems to be on a mission to prove me so right they end up making me look foolish for underselling them all year. All season I felt I had to argue about why I had a team that had been winless so high in the power rankings. In the last two weeks the Colonials have gone gone 3-1 against 6-4 Youngstown State and 11-3 Wright State. If RMU can find a league opponent to replace next week’s scheduled league games against Detroit Mercy a .500 finish is technically still in play, and none of the scheduled games would be against the top teams in the Horizon League.
UIC‘s last four Horizon League results were all double-digit losses to Youngstown State with deficits between 10 and 16 points. We might get more information this week about whether UIC’s four-point win over Detroit Mercy a month and a half ago is carrying too much weight this weekend when Purdue Fort Wayne takes on the Penguins. For now, 1-9 is better than 0-14
Purdue Fort Wayne remained winless in Horizon League play, but for the third week in a row managed to put up a game more competitive than any it played in during its first month of Horizon League play. While Friday’s 77-50 loss to WSU was par for the course, a 69-59 result on Saturday was arguably the Mastodons’ best game yet. We’ll see what the team can do with a seemingly slightly weaker opponent in Youngstown State this weekend.
