The Daily Dive is your deep dive into the news and notes from around the NAIA Hoops World. Every day we will highlight some of the top headlines, conference updates, player accolades, coaching milestones and more. This used to be our Morning Bullet Points series. We went away from it this year, as others were doing similar things and we didn’t want to step on any toes. At the request of many, we have elected to bring it back for the second half of the season. Feel free to DM us on Twitter (@NAIAHoopsReport) or send an email to naiahoopsreport@gmail.com to recommend stories to be included into this segment.
What a crazy last couple of days around the NAIA men’s basketball world. #1 Indiana Wesleyan, #2 William Penn, #3 Mid-America Christian AND #6 Georgetown all lost. These things happen, we honestly don’t worry about any of these teams moving forward. They are all really good teams, but it goes to show you how hard it really is to go a full season undefeated. You are consistently getting everyone’s best shot. As for how this impacts the rankings?! I would bet there won’t be any dramatic drops with those four teams. Indiana Wesleyan and William Penn looked like the best teams in the country first semester. I don’t see how you could overreact to just one game. Now, Indiana Wesleyan does play #16 Faulkner today and William Penn travels to Peru State on Saturday. Losing back to back games before the new rankings can definitely drop either of those teams. Either way you would expect both of these two along with MACU and GTown to all be contenders for a National Title come March.
Reviews of our January 7th Games of the Day:
Even though we were unable to get an article out yesterday, here were the games we had circled as our Games of the Day:
#6 Georgetown 73 @ Shawnee State 74 (Full Recap)
This was a highly contested game throughout, but madness ensued over the past minute of the game. Ultimately, 6’11 EJ Onu drains a 3 with 1.5 seconds left to carry Shawnee State to their 7th straight victory. James Jones took over late for Shawnee scoring 11 points over the final 10 minutes of the game to help Shawnee to the upset win. Freshman Derrin Boyd continues to look really good as he dropped a game high 26 points for Georgetown. Newcomer Carson Newsome finished with 22pts for the Tigers as well.
RV Science and Arts 76 @ #3 MACU 69 (Full Recap)
USAO stayed undefeated last night as they went on the road to pick up a huge Sooner Athletic Conference win. The Drovers got off to a bit of a slow start, but over the last half of the 1st half they started to go on a run and took control of the game. They were led in scoring by Cameron Hines with 20pts. Terrence Jones led MACU with 16pts and had 8reb in the loss.
Other notable scores:
Warner (FL) defeated Keiser 97-84. Paired with an Ave Maria loss, they now sit atop The Sun Conference Standings!
In their 1st game in nearly a month, the Lions of Freed Hardeman looked sharp. Getting a usually tough Mid-South road win at UPike 103-86.
Montreat went into Union (KY) last night and came away with a big 96-83 Appalachian Athletic Conference win.
In other NAIA news:
Friends (KS) Head Coach Dale Faber announced that he will be retiring after the season. If the Falcons can get six more wins this season, Coach Faber will get to that 300 win mark before he retires! Coach Faber has had a good career being named the KCAC Coach of the year twice and making seven trips to the NAIA National Tournament.
In Case You Missed It:
The NAIA Plays of the Week were released. This weeks edition was made up of all basketball plays!
We will have the Schedule and Links article up later this morning. That #1 Indiana Wesleyan vs #16 Faulkner game starts at NOON CT. It is a neutral site game in Bowling Green, so waiting for a link to be posted to share with everyone! As always, make sure you check back in later today to catch who makes the cut for our Games of the Day and our Five Players to Watch!
