This will be the second set of rankings for this season; last weeks rankings, plus a primer on how this all works, is here. The biggest difference between last week's rankings and this week's is that we finally bring in the results against regionally ranked opponents criterion. It's an extra data point, and a fairly critical one that can make a huge difference compared to where we were last week.
So now that the regional advisory committees have spoken, let's take a look at the Central region on both the men's and women's sides and see where North Central stacks up.
Women's Basketball
Central Region: Unranked (out of 9 teams)
Last Week: Unranked
Again, these rankings only take into account games through this past weekend. The Cardinals went out and won a pair of critical games to keep them right in the thick of the CCIW race... though their schedule this week is brutal. As for the region, the sub-.500 record will keep them well out of the rankings even though they have a decent strength of schedule (.541); a winless mark against regionally ranked opponents in four attempts doesn't help.
Looking at the rest of the conference, Wheaton got a huge boost by completing its sweep of Illinois Wesleyan, catapulting themselves up to third in the Central region behind only Wisconsin-Whitewater and Chicago. The Thunder have a strong strength of schedule (.563) and are 3-1 against regionally ranked opponents, including that aforementioned sweep. That helped precipitate Illinois Wesleyan's fall to seventh in the region; the Titans have an excellent SOS (.582), but have eight losses and are just 1-5 against regionally ranked opponents. North Park entered this set of rankings though at number eight; their SOS isn't very good at .513, but they have a good win percentage and an okay 2-4 mark against regionally ranked opponents. At this stage, it's hard to say whether or not the CCIW will get an at large; if they do, it'll be towards the end of the Pool C selections.
Men's Basketball
Central Region: 4th (out of 8 teams)
Last Week: 6th
I came out of the weekend, with the Cardinals fresh off a spanking of Augustana and a survival up in Waukesha against Carroll, figuring North Central was going to get a boost. I figured a spot, maybe two, and turned out to be right. There were others more bullish on the Cardinals, and it makes sense. North Central's strength of schedule got a boost last week (up from .523 to .535), and the two wins were nice. The big thing, though, was the addition of results against regionally ranked opponents. With Augustana and Elmhurst making the first batch, that gave the Cardinals four wins against regionally ranked opponents. The loss to Benedictine also factors in, but doesn't really hurt their resume, though I assume that's partially why the Eagles are one spot ahead.
The concern came from how bad would the rest of the CCIW get dinged. Thankfully, Elmhurst's early run gave them enough for a two spot boost as well, while Augustana fell out completely. The other data point that comes into play is UW-Oshkosh cracking the rankings at 7. The Titans have eight losses, but an absurd SOS (.612) and six losses coming to regionally ranked opponents (to go with three wins, including at North Central earlier this year). On the whole for next week, it might knock the Cardinals down a peg, but not too bad. They should still be in good shape for the NCAA Tournament.
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