North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 2 Edition

We're down to the final week of the regular season now, with the second to last round of games in the CCIW taking place tonight. It's also the second Wednesday in February, which means the NCAA's new set of regional rankings just dropped.

I gave a primer on how this works last week prior to looking at how North Central was ranked on both the men's and women's sides. This week's rankings have one major difference from the first set: from this point forward record against regionally ranked opponents is now taken into account. This is an additional criteria that the selection committees use to help determine not only the rankings, but the tournament field as well. We'll touch on how this impacts things below.

Included below with the regional rankings will be updated CCIW standings taken from the sidebar of Confessions of a Sportscaster. The numbers in parentheses indicate last week's Central Region ranking for those teams.

Women's Basketball

7-16 Overall, 5-9 CCIW (T-5th)
Central Region: Unranked (out of 9 teams) (LW: NR)

Again, a team with a sub .333 win percentage isn't going to be regionally ranked. North Central remains in the thick of the CCIW Tournament hunt (with two games to go for most teams, not everyone has been eliminated, which is kind of amazing). North Central does have an okay strength of schedule still (up to .532), but what amazes me is the sheer number of regionally ranked opponents. North Central is 1-6 against regionally ranked foes this time around, with the lone win coming at Carthage this past week, so for the second straight year we have that fun fact. This, however, won't last.

Regionally ranked opponents also benefitted both Wheaton and Illinois Wesleyan, with the Thunder standing pat at 3rd in the region, while Illinois Wesleyan fell to 5th. Wheaton has a 5-3 mark against regionally ranked foes, including sweeps of Carthage and Illinois Wesleyan, while the Titans have a 5-4 mark (swept by Wheaton, but a sweep of Carthage). Carthage, meanwhile, who rounded out the Central Region in the first batch of rankings, dropped out entirely this time around, probably due to a combination of a 1-6 record against regionally ranked opponents and the aforementioned loss to North Central. Wheaton will host the CCIW Tournament, which based on past history makes it likely that the Thunder will receive the CCIW's automatic bid. In the even of an upset though, the Thunder are in good shape for a Pool C bid. The Titans, meanwhile, find themselves in decent shape still. Wisconsin-Whitewater, who vaulted them for fourth place, have a similar record against regionally ranked opponents but boast an absurd .604 strength of schedule. With just one other WIAC team above them in UW-Oshkosh (2nd in the region), the Titans should be in decent Pool C shape, especially if they make the conference title game.

Men's Basketball

18-5 Overall, 10-4 CCIW (2nd)
Central Region: 5th (out of 8 teams) (LW: 3rd)

Last week was a rough week for the Cardinals, with a pair of home losses bringing the team down a couple pegs. North Central's strength of schedule did go up a smidge to .526, but obviously win percentage took a major hit. The other major issue came in the regionally ranked opponent record. North Central has a decent mark at 2-2, including the win over Augie that seems so long ago now, but splits with them and Wheaton hurt a little bit. This pushes the Cardinals further down the Pool C list, and some experts have the Cardinals on the wrong side of the bubble after last week. If these rankings stay relatively constant and Augustana holds serve at home in the CCIW Tournament, North Central should get to the table with a decent amount of time after Wheaton and whoever's ahead of them from the WIAC (right now, it's UW-LaCrosse). Whether they'll get in depends on what happens over the next week and a half.

Meanwhile, Augie held pat atop the Central region, and Wheaton leapfrogged the Cardinals into third place. The Vikings don't have the best strength of schedule, but .547 is solid enough combined with a 5-2 record against regionally ranked opponents. The Thunder don't have as good a record against RRO's (2-4), but their .574 strength of schedule is excellent and should have them pretty firmly in the Pool C conversation. The big one is seeing Illinois Wesleyan enter the rankings at 7th in the Central. Their 15-8 record isn't great (a .652 win percentage, well below the Mendoza line for Pool C selection), but they make up for it with a .579 strength of schedule and the fact that they've played a whopping nine games against regionally ranked teams (albeit going just 2-7 in those contests). They're a very long shot for Pool C consideration with few opportunities to get more signature wins.