INDIANAPOLIS – Both the women’s basketball programs from Kentucky Wesleyan and Cedarville continued to hold position in the second edition of the NCAA Midwest Region rankings published on Wednesday.
In the first set of rankings published, KWC was at No. 9 and Cedarville was 10th. This time, Kentucky Wesleyan moved up two spots to No. 7 and Cedarville climbed to No. 8
Both KWC and CU have already clinched first-round home playoff games in the quarterfinals of the Great Midwest Championship next week.
The Great Midwest, Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) and Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC), are all included in the region rankings. Each conference receives one automatic qualifier spot to the NCAA Championship bracket with five at-large selections allotted to the highest ranked remaining teams.
Drury and Lewis, both from the GLVC, remain unchanged at the top followed by Grand Valley State, Ashland, Northern Michigan and Truman State. Southern Indiana is sandwiched around KWC and CU at No. 8 and Michigan Tech rounds out this week's poll at No. 10.
Kentucky Wesleyan is on the prowl for a regular-season title and the top overall seed in the eight-team conference tournament bracket. The Panthers have a pair of challenging road trips to Findlay and Hillsdale, both playoff teams again, before the postseason gets underway.
KWC is currently 21-5 overall while leading the league standings at 17-3.
Cedarville is coming off a three-point blitzing against Ursuline, with 23 made treys as the Yellow Jackets eclipsed the century scoring mark as a team.
The 23 made threes is officially a brand new conference single-game record, officially besting Davis & Elkins’ 22 made against Salem just last season.
The Yellow Jackets are also closing out the regular season with a pair of road trips, swinging through West Virginia to take on Davis & Elkins and Alderson Broaddus. Cedarville is currently 20-6 overall and tied for second in the league standings with Walsh at 16-4.