Raymond Hoare
Sports Columnist
This season has been full of achievements for the coaches and the players as they are 25-4 overall and have won the Jayhawk East Conference title. I asked a few students what a team with a 25-4 record and a conference title, what their ranking should be.
The majority of them said top 15, top 10 at least. Well that isn’t the case as of Wednesday, Feb. 27, when the NJCAA released their final top 25 rankings of the regular season. The Grizzlies are no longer in the top 25 rankings and not even receiving votes.
The Grizzlies started the season ranked No. 16 in the nation, and after months, they were at No. 6, but a loss to No. 8 Hutchinson landed them at 11. Soon, the Grizzlies lost once again and saw themselves at No. 20. After six to seven weeks the Grizzlies would go up two spots in the rankings.
Entering the game at Cowley, they were No. 25, barely in the rankings. Despite losing that game, they won out with the Jayhawk East title. But the loss was enough to Kick Butler out of the rankings.
The team that would take No. 25 in the nation is College Hill, with a record of 20-9. Somehow, a team that lost 5 straight games against top 15 teams kicked Butler out of the rankings.
Looking into the receiving votes section, Butler is not listed at all. The bottom of the list is Southern Idaho, a team that only faced one top 25 team, No. 24 Midland, who they lost to. So again, you’re saying that Butler isn’t good enough to be receiving votes?
But looking at the top 25 list, Seward County is No. 2 with a 28-2 record, a good season for them despite a loss to Butler this season while ranked No. 10 at the time.
Looking at another team, Odessa College (Texas), is 19-6 with five losses to top 25 teams. Odessa is currently No. 19 in the country.
It seems like the NJCAA is a bit biased with the rankings when it comes to the Grizzlies.
“We’ve not been happy at all with the rankings…”. Coach Mike Helmer said “They’ve [NJCAA Rankings] been unfair this year…We had teams with five and six loses in front of us… there’s people out there not supporting us…. we just don’t trust people right now”.
Butler did face three ranked teams this season, winning two out of those three games, with the potential to see Hutchinson and Seward County again in the Region VI Tournament coming March 2-6.
Butler had an amazing season under Helmer, who’s been with the team for 11 seasons now and a candidate for coach of the year in the Jayhawk East Conference. Give this team a lot of credit as they were pressured and overcome many trials. If you ask me, let the Grizzlies face off against College Hill in an exhibition game, then we would know.