Second Regional Rankings Released

 The second Regional Rankings were released yesterday afternoon with some adjustments and changes to Region 9 (West Region) that left me perplexed to say the least and need to be discussed.

1	Simpson	23-1	15-0
2	UW-Whitewater	23-3	12-2
3	UW-Eau Claire	20-7	9-5
4	UW-Oshkosh	19-6	7-4
5	Wartburg	20-4	13-3
6	Loras	19-7	12-4
7	Bethany Lutheran	19-7	13-1
8	Northwestern (Minn.)	19-4	13-1
9	Augsburg	20-5	19-2

Keep in mind, there were games last night (Wednesday) and games tonight (Thursday) that will obviously change things up even more between now and Selection Monday.  The first thing I noticed is that Wartburg slipped down a notch from fourth to fifth which is a little odd as they didn't lose and took care of business.  Replacing them in the fourth spot was UW-Oshkosh which jumped from fourth to seventh early yesterday afternoon; probably on the coattails of their win over UW-La Crosse on Monday night.  The guess here is they'll slip again after getting beat by UW-Whitewater last night.  

Loras lost a heartbreaker in double overtime this last Saturday to Wartburg which is likely why the Duhawks slipped down to the sixth spot this week and it's ironic that these two teams are going head-to-head again tonight down in Waverly in the ARC semifinals as I prepare this.  Bethany Lutheran slipped a notch as well after their overtime loss at Northwestern last Friday evening which in itself is no big surprise and you'd almost have to think that these two teams will be seeing each other again one more time in the UMAC Playoffs.  

Now, it's not so much that I have a problem with Northwestern getting into the Regional Rankings itself; after all, they did earn that said overtime victory against that Bethany Lutheran team we were just talking about.  Rather, my problem stems from the committee simply inserting Northwestern into the eighth spot while completely discarding GAC after the Gusties held the eighth spot last week.  True, the Eagles have that win over a regionally ranked opponent but so does GAC after they took ninth-ranked Augsburg to the woodshed earlier this month.  So the question that has to be asked here is why is GAC being punished for winning and doing what they have to do while Augsburg is left unharmed in the ninth spot?  To me, this just doesn't make much sense and I do not understand the committee's rationale here.  If you lose, that's one thing.  But the Gusties didn't and I really don't get this.  

Feel free to fire away with thoughts.....