Bearcats begin year as nation’s No. 1 team

By Jon Dykstra | October 31, 2017 |

Paw

The Northwest Missouri State men’s basketball team will begin this season exactly where they ended the last one: as the No. 1 team in the nation.

The National Association of Basketball Coaches released its preseason poll on Tuesday and the Bearcats earned the top spot by getting 15-of-16 first-place votes.

“I don’t get overly excited about rankings,” Northwest coach Ben McCollum said. “The one thing that we can use it for is to just create a little more pressure. When you won the national title the previous year you can get a little complacent. The last three years, we lost in the Sweet 16. You want a national title, so you are backed in the corner and there is only one way out. You may accept losing one because you say we already have a title and you aren’t in the corner anymore. We have to put ourselves right back where there is only one way out and that is to win again.”

The Bearcats will open the season at 1 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 10. against Upper Iowa in St. Joseph, Missouri.

NABC Preseason Poll Points

1. Northwest Missouri State (15) 399

2. Queens, North Carolina (1) 374

3. Bellarmine, Kentucky 351

4. Lincoln Memorial, Tennessee 324

5. St. Thomas Aquinas 308

6. Indiana, Pennaylvania 304

7. Chico State 297

8. Shippensburg, Pennsylvania 254

9. Colorado School of Mines 236

10. Ferris State, Michigan 230