NABC Poll (Feb. 9)
INDIANAPOLIS – The Great Midwest Athletic Conference still has two men’s programs firmly entrenched and ranked back-to-back in the National Association of Basketball Coaches Poll that came out on Tuesday afternoon.
Hillsdale (13-1, 13-1) officially moved in front of Findlay (12-3, 11-3) and the Chargers are ranked 11th with the Oilers 12th, respectively. Both programs went head-to-head on Saturday in their second meeting of the regular season.
Hillsdale moved up one spot and had the upper hand on Findlay by a final score of 82-71. Both programs figure to factor significantly in the temporarily championship alignment moving from the Midwest Region to the Atlantic Region.
The Great Midwest and Mountain East Conference will each get an automatic qualifying bid from their conference tournaments, leaving four at-large selections for championship qualification. The regional advisory committee and national committee will weigh different criteria from NABC ranked teams like No. 7 Mercyhurst (independent from the PSAC), No. 22 Charleston (MEC), No. 23 West Liberty (MEC) and No. 24 Gannon (independent from the PSAC).
With Hillsdale’s win, the Chargers fortified their position at the top of the Point Rating System (PRS) through 14 games played at 4.39. Findlay also has 14 conference games played and is second at 3.82 with Kentucky Wesleyan coming up fast in the rearview mirror at 3.81 in third.
Hillsdale pushed its win streak to 10 straight and celebrated another weekly conference honor for sophomore forward Patrick Cartier, who was also billed National Player of the Week in Division II by the USBWA.
The Chargers have eight home victories (undefeated in Dawn Tibbetts Potter Arena) and five away wins in the 2020-21 season. Head coach John Tharp’s program is still the toughest defensive squad in the conference while allowing 61.6 points per game.
Hillsdale has six games remaining in the regular season schedule including a pair of tough bookends at Walsh and Malone this week.
Findlay is the top shooting program in the conference by a slim margin over Hillsdale and paces all league teams in categories like assists, steals and assist-to-turnover ratio, all predicated on the coaching style of Charlie Ernst.
The Oilers were ranked sixth a week ago and are looking to shake out of a recent funk which includes a Monday night overtime home loss against Cedarville. Findlay made a furious comeback in the second half by a 20+ point deficit, but just ran out of steam in the end.
The road doesn’t get any easier for Findlay this week, hosting Walsh and facing a red-hot Malone program in Canton that has won seven of its last eight after starting the season 0-4. Sophomore forward Nathan Bruns continues to pace the Oilers in scoring at 13.4 ppg with teammate Tommy Schmock also in the mix at 13.1 ppg.