North Central and the NCAA Regional Rankings: Week 2 Edition

We're halfway into February now, which means it's time to take our second look at the NCAA's regional rankings.

Last week North Central's women were unranked and the men rounded out the Central region. This week's rankings will encompass an addition criterion that last week's did not: results against regionally ranked opponents. Those records will involve games against teams ranked in Week 1.

I tried to go in depth to explain how the regional rankings work last week. For an in-depth look at the process including interviews with some of the committee members, D3Hoops' Ryan Scott has an excellent piece. But for now, let's look at where North Central stands in this second set of rankings.

Women's Basketball

5-17 Overall, 3-10 CCIW

Central: Unranked (out of 9 teams) (LW: NR)

This is the same as last week; a 17 loss team will never be regionally ranked. This is doubly true when your loss from the prior week resulted in the first CCIW win of the season for Millikin (albeit, in Decatur). The game against Millikin does ding North Central's strength of schedule a little bit; Millikin is 7-15, so that's going to hurt them a little bit. Their strength of schedule falls to .534, which is 114th in the country. Against regionally ranked opponents, North Central is 1-5. Their losses are a pair to Illinois Wesleyan, one at Chicago, one against Trinity (Texas), and one to Wheaton, with one to play. Their win is the aforementioned inexplicable upset of Carthage.

Illinois Wesleyan follows up its first appearance in the #2 slot by standing firm. They had a tough loss at Wheaton that hurt their overall record but bolstered their outstanding strength of schedule (.585, 24th in the country). Wheaton got a boost from that aforementioned win and rides the momentum of it from 8th in the Central to 6th. They're 31st in the nation in strength of schedule and boast a 3-2 record against regionally ranked opponents, both good marks. Carthage, meanwhile, fell out of the rankings despite a CCIW Tournament berth firmly in hand and the 27th-ranked strength of schedule. The likely reason: they're 1-4 against regionally ranked opponents with the lone win coming in the season opener against Bethel versus a pair of losses to Wheaton, one to Illinois Wesleyan, and one to Chicago (albeit in double overtime).

CCIW-wise, the Titans, Thunder, and Lady Reds have all clinched CCIW Tournament berths, as shown above. Elmhurst's magic number for the fourth spot is 1, but they're basically locked into that spot. Carthage is pretty much locked into the #3 seed, with Illinois Wesleyan and Wheaton battling for the top spot and tournament hosting rights. The Titans are pretty much an NCAA Tournament lock, and with Wheaton's win over Illinois Wesleyan last week, they're in good shape as well. If they run the table the rest of the way and make the CCIW Championship game, they're probably in as well regardless of what happens. Carthage is a bubble team, and given the women's committee's tendency to look at regionally ranked records, the Lady Reds will probably go home barring winning the auto bid.

Men's Basketball

16-6 Overall, 9-4 CCIW

Central: Unranked (out of 8 teams) (LW: 8th)

North Central had a golden opportunity at home a week ago with Augie coming in to steal first place in the CCIW and push the Vikings further back. Instead, they got off to an awful start and the Vikings survived a late rally. With that loss, North Central fell to 0-4 against regionally ranked opponents (two losses to Augie, one to Illinois Wesleyan, and one to Whitworth from the West region). With Wheaton supplanting North Central, the Cardinals will have an edge in next week's rankings with a win to up that mark to 1-4 and a shot at going up to 2-4 if they can pull off the road win. Their strength of schedule also leaves a bit to be desired at .537, below the other Central region contenders. Basically, if these rankings hold the Cardinals will have to grab the automatic bid again if they want to dance in March.

Augustana stood pat from last week at #3 in the Central, armed with a .581 strength of schedule and 5-2 mark against regionally ranked foes, including a pair against North Central. Illinois Wesleyan losing to Wheaton last week knocked them down a spot from #5 to #6, but their .546 strength of schedule is pretty good, but they're just 2-3 against regionally ranked opposition (including a win over NCC). With that aforementioned win over the Titans, Wheaton makes an appearance in the rankings this week at #7 with a .551 strength of schedule and a 4-3 mark against regionally ranked foes (they have a win over a Whitworth team that beat NCC, but have a loss to NCC as well). Washington University remains atop the rankings with UW-Platteville right behind them. The rest of the rankings are filled with other WIAC schools.

Now, looking at the CCIW as a whole, the big game tonight is Carthage at Wheaton; a Thunder win locks up the four CCIW Tournament teams as Illinois Wesleyan, Augustana, North Central, and Wheaton in some order. Independent of that, North Central and Illinois Wesleyan can clinch berths with wins over Carroll and Millikin, respectively. Seeding is still largely up for grabs, though North Central needs a miracle to host the CCIW Tournament after last week's loss to Augie. Of course, seeding doesn't matter to them after they went "They shouldn't have let us in" on Carthage and Augie last season, but avoiding the bottom seed would probably be beneficial regardless of the host team.