INDIANAPOLIS – After coming off tough week on the road, the Eastern New Mexico women’s basketball team dropped to seventh in the latest NCAA Division II South Central Regional Poll released on Wednesday.
The Lone Star Conference (LSC), the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC), and the Heartland Conference (HC) make up the South Central region as the winners of each conference tournament will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Tournament while the top five remaining teams will receive at-large bids. The rankings are based off of the success against NCAA Division II opponents with factors such as strength of schedule and in-region opponents being taken into account.
The Hounds fell one spot after a 62-55 defeat at Texas A&M-Commerce on Feb. 21 and an 80-75 loss at Tarleton State last Saturday. While the result doesn’t factor into this week’s poll, Eastern’s tough luck on the road continued last night when No. 17 West Texas A&M rallied in the fourth quarter to send the game to overtime before handing the Hounds a 67-60 defeat in overtime.
In this week’s rankings, the Lady Buffs catapulted from fourth to first after getting a pair of wins against Tarleton State and Texas A&M-Commerce, ranked teams in the South Central region. Colorado Mesa (RMAC) held serve at the No. 2 spot after picking up a pair of wins while Lubbock Christian (HC), who was ranked first in last week’s poll, dropped third after suffering a road loss at Newman.
Angelo State (LSC) jumped one spot to fourth after a pair of road wins while conference rival Tarleton State jumped from seventh to fifth. Westminster (RMAC) dropped from third to sixth after falling in a pair of home contests last week.
Texas A&M-Commerce (LSC) and St. Mary’s (HC) traded places as the Lions moved up to eighth and the Rattlers dropped from eighth to ninth while Black Hills State (RMAC) replaced Western Colorado in the No. 10 spot.
The Greyhounds will wrap up the regular season on Saturday as Eastern will travel to Denton, Texas to take on Texas Woman’s at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The Hounds will then travel to Frisco, Texas next week for the Lone Star Conference Tournament as they will open with quarterfinal round on Friday, March 8.
