KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Rocky Mountain College men's basketball team will enter the Frontier Conference postseason tournament ranked the No. 7 team in the NAIA.
The Battlin' Bears, previously ranked 11th, climbed four spots in the final NAIA Men's Basketball Coaches Top 25 Poll of the season, which was released Wednesday.
Rocky is the only Frontier Conference team in the rankings, which are topped by No. 1 Freed-Hardeman (Tenn.), No. 2 Grace (Ind.), No. 3 Oklahoma Wesleyan, No. 4 Indiana Wesleyan and No. 5 Nelson (Texas).
Montana Tech of the Frontier Conference received votes but did not crack the top 25. View the complete men's top 25.
Three Frontier teams are in the NAIA Women's Basketball Coaches' Top 25 Poll, which was also released Wednesday.
Dakota State (S.D.) is the highest-ranked Frontier team at No. 7. Montana Tech is 15th, and Rocky Mountain is 22nd. Previously ranked Carroll College fell out of the top 25 into the "receiving votes" category.
The top five women's teams: Dordt (Iowa), Freed-Hardeman, Bethel (Tenn.), Marian (Ind.) and Campbellsville (Ky.). View the complete women's top 25.
Rocky's men (25-3) and Dakota State's women (24-4) are the top seeds for the Frontier Conference tournaments, which begin Friday in Butte. Both teams have already secured berths in the NAIA national tournaments.
The Battlin' Bears, under first-year head coach Danny Neville, closed the regular season on a 15-game winning streak, their last loss coming in December. Omari Nesbit, a 6-foot-1 senior guard, has had a conference player of the year-caliber of season, averaging a team-best 16.7 points per game to go along with 2.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.5 steals per game.
Royce Robinson, a Lewistown product, is averaging 13.2 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. He's also averaging 1.5 steals and 1.0 blocks per game, as Rocky has the best defense in the Frontier. The Bears are giving up 64.5 points per game and have allowed an opponent to score 70-plus points only twice in the past 15 games.
Rocky opens up the Frontier tournament with a quarterfinal matchup against Mayville State. Tipoff is scheduled for 5 p.m. Friday at the Butte Civic Center.
