How can you not love NAIA basketball? Especially when we start getting into the meat of the conference season! Sure, the top tier teams facing off in non-conference games are fun, but conference games are just different. Last night we were able to once again get our eyes on a lot of games. Especially the final five minutes of some conference games that
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Top Headlines
New Official Top 25 Polls were released:
2022-23 NAIA Men’s Basketball Coaches’ Top 25 Poll One (November 16, 2022) – NAIA
ICYMI: Here is our Men’s Top 25 Breakdown! This was one of our more popular articles last year so if you haven’t read it yet, it’s worth checking out!
2022 NAIA Women’s Basketball Coaches Top 25 Poll – No. 1 – NAIA
Men
- No. 5 Jamestown, No. 11 Southwestern (KS), No. 17 Indiana Tech all go down in defeat.
- No. 11 Southwestern defeat was on the road against No. 7 Oklahoma Wesleyan.
- No. 17 Indiana Tech lost to Saint Francis (IN), in the Summit City (Fort Wayne, IN) Showdown.
- No. 25 Xavier represented the NAIA HBCU’s in the Chris Paul HBCU Tip off Tournament in Virginia. The Gold Rush made it to the title game, before losing to NCAA D2 No.23, Virginia Union, 72-59.
Women
- No. 11 Morningside fell to No. 15 Dordt. (More Below)
- No. 14 Loyola took their crosstown showdown with Dillard.
Games of the Day Recap
Men
- The hiring of Chris Wright, for Langston, has already proven to be a great one. He was fresh off of taking Talladega to the NAIA National Championship game last season and has brought some serious talent and the same hard nose defense to the Lions. The win snaps a 34 game SAC losing streak for Langston. They do it pretty handily too as they locked down on the defensive end to hold a pretty potent MACU offense to just 52 points on 35% from the field and just 14% from 3pt line. This is a better MACU team then they showed last night, and they will get it figured out, but an impressive showing by Langston last night.
7 Oklahoma Wesleyan 77 – 11 Southwestern 63
- This was a physical battle between two good teams. Every rebound in this game was body on body contact and about 14 arms in the mix to grab it. OKWU protected their home court last night in a Top 15 showdown. Jaden Lietzke had 19pts and 6rebs, but Kaleb Stokes, once again, was superb as he finished with 21pts and 10rebs. It’s not just the OKWU offense that makes them tough, it’s their team defense. They wall-up at the rim and make it tough to score in the paint. They contest every shot on the perimeter. Then they rebound the snot out of the ball and run it back down your throat. They continue to be a fun team to watch.
Women
15 Dordt 88 – 12 Morningside 72
- Dordt moved to 6-0 on the season and picked up a GPAC road win, against a Top 15 opponent in Morningside. Dordt jumped on the Mustangs early carrying a 13pt lead into the half. Bailey Beckman led the way with 25pts connecting on five 3’s. Karly Gustafson added in a 16pt,10reb double-double. Morningside has now lost three straight contests. They will look to regroup this week as they host Benedictine (KS).
- Marian made it 8 straight wins against Taylor as they pick up the road Crossroads League win! Marian was locked in early on defense holding the Trojans to just 18 first half points. Taylor would go on a run in the 3rd quarter, but Marian was having none of it as they pushed an 8pt lead to a 15pt win in the 4th. Abby McNally led the way for Marian with 16pts and 8rebs. Gretchen Moll had a career high 21pts to go with 12 rebounds for Taylor.
Milestone
- Kia Tower of Jamestown joined the 1k scorers club last night! Congrats Kia!
