#HLMBB Power Rankings – Week 6

It was Finals Week, so, if we’re being honest with each other, I wasn’t expecting a ton of movement in the Power Rankings. However, with some key games happening, there were clearly opportunities for teams to move around a bit, and some of the results ended up shuffling things around a bit more than expected.

So here are the Horizon League men’s basketball Power Rankings after Week 6:

Rank	Team	Last Week
1.	Youngstown State	1
2.	Purdue Fort Wayne	7
3.	Northern Kentucky	8
4.	Robert Morris	5
5.	Milwaukee	3
6.	Oakland	2
7.	Detroit Mercy	4
8.	Wright State	6
9.	Green Bay	9
10.	Cleveland State	10
11.	IU Indy	11

Unless Thiel somehow would have made a game of it on Sunday, Youngstown State wasn’t budging from the top spot in the Power Rankings, But the Tomcats didn’t, and the Penguins drove them into the kitty litter, dropping 103 points on them in the process. This match-up was more or less a glorified practice session for YSU, which has some serious conference business to tend to on Wednesday, traveling to Moon Township for a heavyweight battle against Robert Morris.

Purdue Fort Wayne was one of only a couple of Horizon League teams that had two contests during the week, and neither of them were all that easy. However, both turned out to be wins for the Mastodons, beating regular conference tormentor Eastern Michigan and then taking a league win in a knock-down, drag-out fight with Detroit Mercy. This place in the Power Rankings, however, will probably be temporary for Purdue Fort Wayne, as the only game on the slate next week for the Mastodons is a road trip to Notre Dame.

Like Purdue Fort Wayne, Northern Kentucky had a bit of extra action on the court this week, as opposed to its league counterparts. However, the first win of the week was far easier, dismantling non-D1 Brescia. The second win wasn’t as easy, but the Norse took another win on the road, this time against an old foe from their D2 days, Bellarmine. NKU’s got two more games on tap this week, with a conference battle at home against Oakland and non-conference tilt, also at home, against the College of Charleston looming.

Robert Morris made a slight jump in the Power Rankings courtesy of a win over another conference tormentor, Toledo, holding off a late Rockets surge to take the victory. The Colonials accomplished this by relying on Ryan Prather, Jr. and Desean Goode, who each had 17 points, Albert Vargas, who chipped in 16, and Nikos Chitikoudis, who grabbed 14 boards to go along with his 12 points. Next up for RMU will be rivalry game against a very tough Youngstown State squad.

Unlike last week, there was no Seth Hubbard to come through with a last-second tap-in against Indian State for Milwaukee. Even worse is that Hubbard won’t be doing that against for the rest of the season, as he sustained a shoulder injury that has knocked him out of competition. The Panthers will need to regroup in a hurry, as they meet South Dakota State at Fiserv and then travel to the Wolstein Center to play Cleveland State on Sunday.

One of the downsides of only playing one game during the week is that if it doesn’t go very well, your spot in the Power Rankings may suffer. That’s exactly what happened to Oakland this week, the victims of a road loss against a very good Northern Iowa squad. To make matters worse, the Golden Grizzlies started out the week with another loss, this time related to personnel, with Nassim Mashhour being declared out for the season with an injury. Oakland will have to press on with another set of hard games this week against Northern Kentucky and versus Michigan State at Little Caesars Arena.

As mentioned last week, a tumble down the Power Rankings wasn’t entirely unexpected for Detroit Mercy. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. The Titans gave Purdue Fort Wayne everything they had on the road but ultimately fell in the waning minutes. Detroit Mercy gets a bit of a breather next week, as a home contest against non-D1 Siena Heights is the only game on tap.

When you only play one game during the week, your luck in the Power Rankings tends to go up and down. And this week, Wright State’s luck was downright terrible, as like the Youngstown State loss before, the other team had better fortune than the Raiders did. In this case, it was Marshall, which had trouble all Saturday against Wright State, and for a moment, it looked as if the Raiders would get a great road win. But it ended in another close loss. Wright State’s luck gets even worse, as the Raiders play host to Miami (OH), one of the only remaining undefeated teams in the country.

Yes, Green Bay probably should be higher. After all, the Phoenix beat IU Indy for their first conference win of the season and their five wins this year have already exceeded their win total from the season before. But as for this week, Green Bay remains in this spot, although there’s a chance to finally jump up from here, as a home game against UC Santa Barbara awaits the Phoenix.

Cleveland State played an NAIA team in Oakland City coming off of Finals Week, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that no matter how much the Vikings won by on Sunday, they’d stay put in the Power Rankings. If CSU got anything out of the 44-point romp, it was that the defense is capable of keeping opponent scoring in check. Whether that translates to a non-D1 foe remains to be seen, and Vikings will be tested in this area when they travel to play UAB.

Things haven’t gone well for IU Indy so far, outside of a wins against Eastern Michigan and Morehead State. And now the Jaguars are sitting at 0-3 in conference play, thanks to a loss at home against Green Bay. And the high-powered offense IU Indy has displayed is starting to peter out, with the Jags averaging less than 70 points per contest in the three league losses. Mind you, one of those games was the 55-point misfire against Youngstown State, but 75 points against Green Bay wasn’t anything to write home about, either. They’ll have a non-D1 game against Miami-Middletown before heading to the desert to play Grand Canyon.