#HLMBB Power Rankings — Week 11

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The top of the Horizon League seems to be sorting itself out, and we’re beginning to get a handful of teams that look like they’ll be the ones vying for the top seeds in the league tournament, but this week in the Horizon League Men’s Basketball Power Rankings still had plenty of surprises in store. Probably most notably, the team that was solidly in first place when we returned to league play has managed to do something that seemed almost impossible just weeks ago. Purdue Fort Wayne’s home loss to IUPUI has lifted the Jaguars out of the double-digits in the Power Rankings.

While the middle of the rankings do remain pretty volatile, I wouldn’t expect to see anyone but the Michigan schools bookending things for at least a couple weeks.

Here’s where things stand now:

TeamRankPreviousChange
Oakland11
Green Bay22
Youngstown State34+1
Northern Kentucky46+2
Wright State56+1
Milwaukee63-3
Cleveland State77
Robert Morris88
IUPUI910+1
Purdue Fort Wayne109-1
Detroit Mercy1111

Oakland extended its win streak to six, and in the process guaranteed that it’ll stay at the top of the Power Rankings for another week while everyone else is beating each other up. In its lone game of the week, Oakland hosted Youngstown State and won 70-67. Chris Conway led the way for the Golden Grizzlies with 17 points on 6-for-8 shooting from the field.

Green Bay split this week’s games, but it’s enough to keep the Phoenix second in the rankings and the standings in its surprise season that has Noah Reynolds in position to win Horizon League Player of the Year and Sunny Wicks in position to win Horizon League Coach of the Year. Green Bay went to Wright State and won 88-81 on Wednesday before getting blown out 74-52 at Northern Kentucky on Saturday. While that second game obviously wasn’t ideal, their recent results still stand out well enough that the Phoenix keep this spot for another week. Reynolds averaged 19.5 points and 6.0 assists for Green Bay.

Youngstown State narrowly missed the chance to jump into the top 2 with the close loss at Oakland before obliterating Detroit Mercy 105-64 on Saturday. The Penguins have won four of their last five, and as a result get the third spot in the rankings. From a non-Power Rankings position, YSU is also in a good position going forward overall as both games against Oakland are over and the team is just a game out of first place. Ziggy Reid averaged 19.5 points per game in the two contests.

Northern Kentucky is on a 3-game win streak, and ended a run of close contests with dominating wins over the Wisconsin schools. Before Saturday’s 22-point win over Green Bay, the Norse had an equally impressive 90-72 win over Milwaukee. Marques Warrick yet again led the way for NKU, averaging 21.0 points and 3.5 assists per game.

Wright State avenged one of its two losses in Wisconsin, turning around after losing to Green Bay and easily beating Milwaukee 95-81. WSU moves to 4-2 since that road trip, which is at the very least enough to jump the Panthers this week. Brandon Noel averaged 20.0 points and 9.5 rebounds during the weekend split.

Milwaukee fell from its spot near the top of the rankings after just a week, with this week’s 0-2 record being its first since the return of Horizon League play that the team didn’t keep pace with rival Green Bay. The Panthers drop for the 0-2 week, but stay above the Cleveland State team that it beat last week. B.J. Freeman struggled from the field, but averaged 16.5 points and 4.5 assists per game for Milwaukee.

Cleveland State won its lone game of the week 75-68 over Purdue Fort Wayne. The win didn’t help CSU in the rankings at all, but was a nice bounce back after a pair of road losses the week prior. Drew Lowder hit five of his ten 3-pointers and led the Vikings with 23 points in the win.

Robert Morris has won four of its last five games, but finds itself in eight place in the Power Rankings because none of the teams that those four wins have come against has been listed yet. Others on the site might do things a little differently, but I heavily consider the quality of opponents rather than just crowning whatever team went 2-0. This week, RMU escaped a double overtime affair with Detroit Mercy 102-99 on a Markeese Hastings heave at the buzzer before easily defeating IUPUI 80-63 on Saturday. T.J. Wainwright scorched the nets, averaging an insanely efficient 23.0 points per game and adding 4.0 rebounds per game this week.

IUPUI has seemed like it was destined for the bottom two spots in the Power Rankings for pretty much the entire season, but went on the road and beat a Purdue Fort Wayne team that’s in the middle of a five game losing streak to find itself in ninth place this week. If the two played a seven game series the Jaguars might lose 4-1, but wins and losses have to mean something. The team was prevented by a bigger jump on Saturday when Robert Morris easily went to Indianapolis and won. Unsurprisingly, Jlynn Counter was the biggest performer for IUPUI this week. He averaged 20.5 points and 4.0 assists per game.

Purdue Fort Wayne‘s shocking freefall continued this week, with the Wednesday home loss against IUPUI marking what is easily the team’s most alarming defeat. Three days removed from that ugly result, it’s not a surprise that PFW went to Cleveland and extended its current losing streak to five games. Rasheed Bello averaged 19.5 points and 5.0 assists per game in the pair of losses.

Detroit Mercy remains winless, now 0-20 on the season and 0-9 in Horizon League play. The Titans did put the scare into Robert Morris this week, but came up short before getting blown out by Youngstown State. Marcus Tankersley was impressively reliable shooter, averaging 27.5 points with an effective field goal percentage of 50% in the two games.

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