KANSAS CITY, Mo. – On a nine-game win streak and atop of the 13-team South Atlantic Conference, the Lincoln Memorial University men's basketball team is ranked among the nation's Top 5 in both national polls for the 15th consecutive week. Having won 28-straight home games and leading all of NCAA Division II men's basketball with 16 victories on the season, the Railsplitters (16-1, 14-1 SAC) are ranked No. 4 for the third-straight week in the ninth National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Division II Top 25 regular season poll of 2020-21, which was released Tuesday afternoon.
After tied for second in last week's D2SIDA Media Poll, LMU is No. 2 and receiving one first-place vote in the fifth national media poll of 2021, which was also announced Tuesday afternoon.
The Railsplitters, who are coming off a 106-72 home rout of Catawba Monday night, have now spent a program record 25-straight weeks ranked among the nation's top 10 dating back to Nov. 19, 2019. LMU has spent 95 total weeks as a top-10 team, held a top-five ranking a combined 61 weeks and appeared in the national polls a total of 144 weeks since December of 2010.
The top five spots in the coaches poll remain unchanged with Colorado School of Mines (10-0) sitting at No. 1 for the fifth consecutive week. Northern State (12-0) is No. 2 and the last NCAA national champion, Northwest Missouri State (14-1), is ranked third followed by the fourth-ranked Railsplitters and No. 5 West Texas A&M (7-1). Truman State (12-1) at No. 6, seventh-ranked Mercyhurst (7-0), No. 8 Colorado Mesa (13-1), ninth-ranked Lubbock Christian (12-0) and No. 10 the University of Alabama in Huntsville (8-1) round out the top 10 of the NABC Top 25. LMU defeated 10th-ranked UAH 93-68 in Harrogate on Dec. 13.
Queens University of Charlotte (10-4), who sits in third place in the SAC standings, is the only other team in the league nationally ranked. The Royals are No. 20 in the coaches poll and check in at No. 25 in the media poll.
For the 2021 Division II Men's and Women's Basketball Championships, the traditional regional alignments have been adjusted to a blended regional alignment to provide more equitable opportunity for teams to advance to their respective championship while attempting to maintain geographic proximity for the schools in the regional. The one-year regional alignment, which was implemented due to the scheduling complexities of the COVID-19 global pandemic, is made up of the SAC, Conference Carolinas and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) for the Southeast Region.
Lenoir-Rhyne University (7-2) is receiving 20 votes in the NABC Top 25 as the only other program in the 2021 Division II Basketball Southeast Region to be receiving votes in either national poll.
The Railsplitters hit the road for a four-game road trip to close out the regular season beginning Saturday, Feb. 13 at Newberry. Tipoff from inside Eleazer Arena in Newberry, South Carolina, is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Next Wednesday, Feb. 17, LMU takes on local adversary Tusculum University at 8 p.m. in Greeneville, Tenn.
Comments