It has been a crazy year for sure. Here we are at the second rendition of the NHR Top 25 and we have teams who have played anywhere between 0-13 games. It is nearly impossible to compare teams at this point, but rankings are fun and even if they are our opinions, it is still a good scope of where teams are at in NAIA men’s basketball.
The 2nd edition of our rankings features a new #1 in Indiana Wesleyan. They sit at 13-0 with two wins over the official preseason NAIA Top 25. Them and Loyola (LA) are the only ones to have two wins over NAIA Top 25 teams. IWU is currently blowing people out. They have a big matchup this weekend with our #5 team, Arizona Christian. That should be a BIG time matchup between two teams that will surely be in Kansas City later this year.
Previous #1 Georgetown drops to #8 in our rankings. Losing 3 All-Americans including the National Player of the Year will affect any team. The Tigers have some really good young talent and have one of the top coaches in NAIA at the helm. Chris Briggs already has them looking better and will no doubt have them competing for another Mid-South Conference crown.
As always, there are about 30-35 teams that could honestly have an argument to be in the Top 25. Teams have and will play themselves both in and out of our Top 25 all year long. Once we can verify what the NAIA plans for the National Tournament are, we may extend our rankings to a RPI Top 40 format or possibly incorporate an ARC ranking segment into our rankings. These will help to paint the picture better for what the NAIA National Tournament will look like this year. A lot of questions remain unclear though, as Covid hit, scheduling has been more chaotic and the original plans for what the first NAIA National Tournament looks like now that we have just one division of NAIA hoops. We will have more on this down the road once we can verify some more things!
Without further ado, here is our new NAIA Hoops Report Top 25 Men’s basketball rankings:
NAIA Hoops Report Top 25 – 2nd Edition
| 1 | Indiana Wesleyan | 13-0 |
| 2 | William Penn (Iowa) | 10-0 |
| 3 | Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) | 2-0 |
| 4 | LSU Shreveport (La.) | 8-0 |
| 5 | Arizona Christian | 6-0 |
| 6 | Mid-America Christian (Okla.) | 4-0 |
| 7 | Loyola (La.) | 4-0 |
| 8 | Georgetown (Ky.) | 2-0 |
| 9 | College of Idaho | 1-3 |
| 10 | SAGU (Texas) | 1-0 |
| 11 | Marian (Ind.) | 3-1 |
| 12 | Cumberlands (Ky.) | 7-1 |
| 13 | John Brown (Ark.) | 0-0 |
| 14 | Providence (Mont.) | 0-0 |
| 15 | Morningside (Iowa) | 10-1 |
| 16 | Faulkner | 8-0 |
| 17 | Xavier (La.) | 2-1 |
| 18 | The Master’s (Calif.) | 3-0 |
| 19 | Talladega | 7-1 |
| 20 | Dakota Wesleyan | 9-1 |
| 21 | LSU Alexandria (La.) | 7-2 |
| 22 | Texas A&M Texarkana | 5-0 |
| 23 | Saint Francis (IN) | 6-1 |
| 24 | Oregon Tech | 0-0 |
| 25 | Bethel (KS) | 9-3 |
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