First regional rankings headlines

Here are the things that jumped out at me in the first regional rankings. • Early Pool B contenders: Clarkson (No. 2 in New York), Chapman (No. 5 in West), St. Lawrence (No. 8 New York). • Christopher Newport is fifth in the South. • Otterbein ahead of Hope in the Great Lakes makes sense to me, but it could surprise some. • Chapman is ahead of Pacific Lutheran in the West. • Five of the eight UAA teams are ranked. • Midwest Region No. 8 Wheaton (10-9 in-region) is 0-8 against in-region ranked teams. Unranked Midwest Region team UW-Eau Claire (12-11 in-region) is 4-7 against in-region ranked teams. More ranked results, infinitely more ranked wins, nearly identical record. UWEC and WC have four common opponents. UWEC is 1-3 against those teams; WC is 0-5. Discuss. • Millikin (10-6 in-region) is 2-4 against in-region ranked teams. UW-Eau Claire (12-11) is 4-7. MU beat Elmhurst. UWEC lost to Elmhurst. But I still give the advantage to the team with a lesser record but played nearly half of its schedule against regionally ranked teams. Trust me, I like Millikin and the CCIW. I think the CCIW is better than the WIAC this season. But I like UWEC’s resume more than I do MU’s. • UW-Whitewater (15-5 in-region) ahead of UW-Stevens Point (18-6) is no doubt due in large part to strength of schedule components, but UWSP swept UWW and they have the same winning percentage. I tend to give head-to-head a lot of weight. Since the rankings, UWSP has also swept UW-Platteville, which is also ahead of UWSP. Show me a bad loss on the UWSP resume. I think the Pointers should be higher despite some cupcake nonconference wins. It’s not like UWW’s schedule is cupcake free. • There’s a logical flow to the Central rankings. There are a few coin flips like Concordia (14-3) or St. Thomas (23-3)? Again, I went with head-to-head results on that one. But after the No. 2 spot is decided, the dominoes fell accordingly. I thought Bethel (18-6) would be higher. If Concordia is below St. Thomas, then the Bethel win over Concordia is lessened a bit. I was also surprised that Wartburg’s strength of schedule apparently wasn’t high enough to get ranked. And if Wartburg (16-8) isn’t ranked, there’s not much for Nebraska Wesleyan (8-4) to hang its hat on. St. Scholastica (18-6) getting ranked, thanks to a win over Bethel and a strong overall schedule, helped Saint Benedict’s cause and so on down the line.

Agree or disagree? What are some of the things you like or dislike about the first rankings?

-Ricky Nelson