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.
Recap of Yesterday’s Games of the Day:
Kansas Wesleyan 64 @ Bethany 67 (Full Recap)
Big win for Bethany last night as they stay in the KCAC playoff hunt and increase their lead over the 9th place team by 2 games. Isiah Saenz led all scorers with 19pts for Bethany. Covid has hit the KWU program pretty hard this year, as they once again played short handed.
Cornerstone 80 @ RV Indiana Tech 85 (Full Recap)
Another fun battle between the two WHAC rivals. The WHAC is off to a frantic start, as the league got going late in the season. However, we now see 4 teams vying for 1st place and it’s going to make for a great finish to the regular season. The Tech Trio led the way once again in this one with Grant Smith leading the way with 20 points in the Tech win.
6 Shawnee State 77 @ 20 Thomas More 68 (Full Recap)
Not sure that there is a team in the NAIA that is playing better than Shawnee State right now. The Bears rolled to their 18th straight win last night as they went on the road to knock off #20 Thomas More. A game in which Shawnee led by 23pts late in the 2H, before TMU stormed back to make the game closer than it appeared. The win tied a program record of 22 wins in a season.
Full Scoreboard:
Post Season Brackets:
– We got our 1st look at a post-season bracket yesterday, as the GCAC released it’s Conference Tournament Matchups!
– It’s not a bracket, but the Cal Pac officially released their 3 team round robin details for their post season.
Top Plays:
– #3 William Penn sure looks like they always have a lot of fun playing basketball!
Shout Outs:
– In case he didn’t have enough records already, Kyle Mangas broke another one this past weekend. Congrats Kyle!
– Congrats to Indiana Tech Women’s Head Coach Jessie Biggs on her 200th career win!
ICYMI:
– The NAIA released the conference ratings ahead of Wednesday’s Top 25 release:
– We also released our NAIA Top 25 and our Bracketology Report this week:
– Feel free to share your highlights and game recaps with our Instagram Account as well: NAIA_Hoops_Report! Our guy Jeremy Wright is ready to repost them to our page to start getting our Instagram more active!
