KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The West Liberty University men’s basketball team jumped up three spots to No. 11 when this week’s National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division II Top 25 poll was released Tuesday afternoon.
Coach Jim Crutchfield’s high-flying Hilltoppers (7-1) just missed moving back into the Top 10 after hitting the century mark in all three wins last week.
West Liberty survived a road scare at Fairmont State with a 103-97 overtime victory on Tuesday before going down to Charleston and handing the previously-unbeaten Golden Eagles a 100-83 thrashing. The Hilltoppers finished things off on Sunday with a 138-92 non-conference rout of Point Park (Pa.) at the ASRC.
Defending national champion Bellarmine, Ky. dropped out of the No. 1 spot this week thanks to a 99-94 overtime loss to the University of Indianapolis.
Missouri Southern (8-0) moved up from No. 2 to the first No. 1 ranking in school history this week with seven of the eight first-place votes. Metro State, Colo. (7-0) is the new No. 2 with Lincoln Memorial, Tenn. (8-0) and Southern Indiana (6-0) in a tie at No. 3. Kentucky Wesleyan (6-0) received the other first-place vote and rounds out the top five.
Bellarmine slides to No. 6, followed by the Colorado School of Mines (5-0), Humboldt State, Calif. (5-1) and Findlay, Ohio (6-1) – which handed West Liberty its only loss of the season. Unbeaten Fort Hays State, Kan. (7-0) edged out the Hilltoppers for the No. 10 spot.
This marks the 26th consecutive week that West Liberty has been ranked in the NABC Top 25, the longest run by a WVIAC program since Salem was ranked for an NCAA Division II record 76 straight weeks from 1997 to 2003.
The two-time defending West Virginia Conference champion Hilltoppers were the only WVIAC team receiving votes this week. West Liberty returns to action Sunday afternoon with a tough conference road test at West Virginia Wesleyan. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. at the Rockefeller Center.
Discussion about this post