Mid Major Top 25: 20+% In

We now roughly have 20-25% of the season in the books. It’s still a little noisy and some of these mid-majors have padded their records with non D1’s or cupcakes. Still, after Feast Week, there were a lot of games played, and a picture is emerging of what teams stand out across basketball. I think it’s a good time to have our first in-season mid-major top 25 now that we have some actual resumes to judge.

Before we continue, here at The Hoops Resource, we define a mid-major and eligibility in these rankings as anyone, not in a top 10 Major Conference. There have been pretty distinct tiers in recent years developed both in money and average finish.

Power 6: Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 10, Pac 12

Major: AAC, WCC, Atlantic 10, MWC

Mid Major: led by CUSA, MVC, CAA, WAC, MAAC, Big West, Sun Belt, SoCon, Horizon, MAC

There is a Low Major tier,  but for our purposes, they will be included in these rankings.

Most of these teams appeared in our preseason mid-major rankings and previews.

The only two that didn’t are UC Irvine, and Sam Houston State. These two are a bit of a surprise to us. UC Irvine has beaten Oregon, New Mexico State both teams we thought were top 100 in the preseason. Their only loss is to Pepperdine. Sam Houston State has beaten both Oklahoma and Utah and remains undefeated.

The biggest riser since the preseason rankings is College of Charleston we started at 17th. They have multiple strong wins over Virginia Tech, Richmond, Kent State, Davidson, Colorado State, and Chattanooga, with a competitive loss to UNC being the only blemish. I think they have had the best season of any mid-major so far, but we aren’t totally going to scrap our preseason expectations just yet.