Top 25 Ballot Breakdown: Week 9 (Feb. 5, 2025)
Welcome back to another ballot breakdown here as we head into the month of February. My apologies for the lack of consistency in my coverage over the last week or so—traveling for my book on Division III basketball sometimes makes it tough to pull everything together—but I’m ready and prepared for the push into the tournament over these next few weeks and look forward to providing some more in-depth tournament odds articles, conference tournament coverage, and maybe a few more player-specific posts, similar to what I did with the Top Freshmen posts a couple weeks ago.
But for now, I wanted to take a quick look at my Top 25 ballot from this past week, what stood out to me, and how I came to the order that I did. I am intentionally aiming to keep this a little more brief (these ballot breakdowns have been known to be a little lengthy!), so here we go…
My Week 9 Top 25 Ballot:
My top five teams stayed the same, with NYU, Scranton, and Illinois Wesleyan as my top three. I did swap UW-Oshkosh and Smith in my No. 4 and No. 5 spots, as I still feel a little more confident in Oshkosh, considering the strength of their schedule, and the fact that the Titans actually grade out a bit better in defensive efficiency. Considering how much I value both teams’ defensive approach, Oshkosh has the narrow edge in that category, and seeing how they bounced back from the River Falls loss with a 12-point win at UW-Platteville (their longest trip of WIAC play) was a good sign that the Titans are in strong form at this point in the year. The gap between Smith and Oshkosh is pretty thin, in my opinion.
Bowdoin, Whitman, and Trine sit from No. 6 to No. 8, in the same order as last week. Nothing really changed with my reads on those teams, as Bowdoin remains undefeated, and Whitman and Trine both rolled to sizable conference wins. Gettysburg broke into my Top 10, however, as I’m growing in my confidence in the Bullets. As I’ve said before, I had some serious reservations about how Gettysburg would fare without Makenzie Szlosek once she went out with an injury three games in. But in her absence, the void has been absorbed. No one player is filling that void, but Alayna Arnolie has taken on a slightly larger scoring role (14.8 PPG last year to 16.1 PPG so far), Shinya Lee has become arguably the Centennial’s most effective post player (Avg 10.2 PPG, 10.1 RPG currently), and A.B. Holsinger is up 1.1 PPG from last year.
UW-Stout dropped back one spot to No. 10 after the loss to UW-La Crosse, and I’m probably higher on the Blue Devils than most (they’re No. 19 in this week’s poll). But this is a team capable of a lot, and one home loss to a team that now has seven Top 100 wins this season won’t change my read on Stout. They’ve got UW-Eau Claire tonight and UW-Whitewater on Saturday; two key WIAC tests. As I’ve said from the beginning, nobody goes undefeated through WIAC play. A loss is to be expected. That doesn’t change the quality of the team itself.
I slid Hope a slight bit back to No. 13, but the group from No. 11 to No. 20 feels as though the gap between any two is no more than a couple points if they met on a neutral court. Baldwin Wallace has now won 18 straight, and it felt like the time to push them a bit higher than No. 13, especially after the big 49-41 win over Ohio Northern last Wednesday. They continue to win games with their defensive efficiency (10th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency) though I think a lack of consistent offense is what’s holding me back from seriously considering them for the Top 10, despite the 18-1 record.
Catholic continues inching further towards the top of my ballot, now at No. 15. I had the Cardinals 10th in my preseason ballot but slid them down after the early home loss to Elizabethtown. That said, they’ve only lost once since then—a fairly-expected 77-55 loss to Scranton—and have climbed the efficiency ladder to No. 10 in overall efficiency, while ranking No. 6 nationally on the defensive end.
UW-Whitewater similarly slid up by one spot to No. 16, having won four straight in WIAC play. That included a key 70-54 win over UW-Stevens Point, a team the Warhawks struggled against in a 68-57 loss back on Jan. 8. Winning at La Crosse—especailly with La Crosse’s win over Stout—stood out from UWW’s performances over the last two weeks.
Wartburg is now back in my Top 20, up to No. 19 from No. 21. The Knights seem to be back to their early-season form, having tallied three consecutive double-digit wins in A-R-C play over solid programs; Central, Luther, and Simpson. Lauren Woeste continues to be the most improved player on Wartburg’s roster (in my opinion) averaging 14.0 PPG, a sharp rise from her 8.0 PPG in 32 games last year. Primarily a contributor off the bench in the Knights’ Final Four run a season ago, Woeste has started 19 games this year, averages 6.3 more minutes/game, has 3.4 more rebounds/game, and already tied her assist total from 2023-24 in 13 fewer games. If Woeste is playing well, you can count on Wartburg to be playing well.
A little further down, after Bethel at No. 21 and UMass Dartmouth at No. 22 (both one spot different from last week), I have East Texas Baptist at No. 23. I certainly wasn’t the only voter with ETBU on my ballot, as the Tigers earned the most points of any unranked team (51) in this week’s poll, and were the top vote-getter amongst Texas teams. At 17-4, I’ve had them in my ballot for three weeks now, but they were No. 25 for the last two. Like Wartburg, they aren’t exceptional in efficiency (No. 39 nationally), but they’ve played a quality schedule and pass the eye test. Payton Hicks and Madison Hurta highlight the backcourt, but I love that there’s an inside presence to complement the guards. Hannah Ayala, who came back against LeTourneau after being out for multiple games in January, does a tremendous job on the boards and Hannah Matthews, as a 6’2 center, is third on the team in assists (33). Being able to work the ball inside, pull defenders towards the paint, then kick out to Hurta for a 3 is a huge strength of ETBU’s offense. The defensive component has played a pivotal role in ETBU’s biggest wins so far too; holding Wartburg to 47 points, limiting Millsaps to 49, and Hardin-Simmons to 66. Not to mention, they’re the only D3 team in the nation to have beaten Division II UT-Dallas (UTD is technically a D2 independent this year, but has played 15 D3s).
Carroll returned to my ballot this week at No. 24 after initially dropping off pretty early on. The Pioneers are now 14-5, and their current form warrants some more national recognition than what they’re currently getting. With eight straight wins and a 9-1 CCIW record, Carroll has gotten back to its early-season rhythm, with Olivia Rangel, Natalie Gricius, and Emilie Wizner all playing at a high level consistently. That’s what was missing, it seemed, during Carroll’s skid in December. They struggled to get that star-studded trio to be on point all at once, and their offense—clearly a primary strength—suffered. But that’s changed. Take the 86-74 win over Millikin last week for example; Rangel had 25 with five assists, Gricius had 19 and shot 61.5% from the floor, and Wizner put up 14, taking efficient shots in a 4-of-8 shooting day. We get to see Carroll truly tested at No. 2 Illinois Wesleyan tonight, but I feel very good about the direction the Pioneers are heading in.
In the always-contested No. 25 spot, I went back and forth before putting Randolph-Macon in. RMC is 18-1 with 17 straight wins, their only loss coming to Gettysburg in the second game of the season. The Yellow Jackets went to Lexington, Virginia and knocked off Washington & Lee in double overtime this past Saturday. RMC has built a solid resume, one that ranks No. 11 currently in NPI. However, their biggest wins have been very tight—Johns Hopkins, 75-74 (OT), Rhode Island College, 58-57, W&L, 86-83 (2OT). That’s where some of my hesitancy came in, and the reason that RMC isn’t higher in my ballot. They don’t have that key convincing win on their resume, and unlike NPI, as voters, you have to go deeper than just, “a win is a win.” The margin of victory and quality of the performance needs to come into play. That said, for RMC to pick up two of its three biggest wins away from home stands out, and despite the Yellow Jackets’ efficiency rating not being as strong as most of the others I have in this ballot, they’re doing a lot of things right. McKenzie Matheny, a transfer from Mount St. Mary’s, is one of the most impactful non-D3 transfers we’ve seen, and has given RMC that one-two punch with Matheny and Catherine Kagey. Julianna Park has also been terrific, and RMC’s frontcourt is, in my opinion, the best in the ODAC. So we’ll see how things go for RMC from here. Tonight’s home duel with Bridgewater is the biggest test left on the regular season slate, so it will be very telling, and with a solid win, I’ll definitely be inclined to move RMC higher next week.
But there were other teams very close with RMC in that conversation for No. 25. Every team in that group has some visible flaws, whether it be in the eye test, resume, or metrics. Colorado College is a team that continues to sit very close for me, and is ranked No. 23 this week in the poll. I still don’t have W&L (No. 21 in the poll) in my ballot either, but the Generals are extremely close. WashU and UW-Stevens Point were the two that dropped out for me from Week 8 to Week 9, and I strongly considered both. At 13-5 and 4-3 in the UAA, WashU has definitely held its own, and there’s no doubt that the Bears are a very capable team. The coaching staff, led by Lisa Stone in her first year, has put a good product on the floor and the talent is there with Jessica Brooks, Lexy Harris, and Sidney Rogers. That said, they’ve dropped in efficiency and dealt with some inconsistent stretches, and the 72-45 win over Chicago in early January lost a bit of its luster with the Maroons now 2-5 in the UAA. UWSP similarly has been in a lot of very competitive games as of late, picked up some notable wins since January, and is right there in the top half of the WIAC at 14-4, 4-4 WIAC. But they’ve still lost three of their last four, and the 16-point loss to UW-Whitewater hurt them. A four-point loss at Oshkosh is understandable, but it’s harder to overlook that double-digit loss, even to a very solid Whitewater team. But both WashU and UWSP are right there in my next five, and are staying on my watch list heading into the rest of this week.
6 key matchups on tonight’s slate
No. 9 Gettysburg at No. 20 Johns Hopkins, 4:30 p.m.
No. 24 UMass Dartmouth at Rhode Island College, 5:30 p.m.
No. 17 Catholic at No. 18 Elizabethtown, 7:00 p.m.
RV Bridgewater (VA) at No. 22 Randolph-Macon, 7:00 p.m.
RV Carroll at No. 2 Illinois Wesleyan, 8:00 p.m.
No. 16 UW-Whitewater at No. 5 UW-Oshkosh, 8:00 p.m.