January 18, 2005
There's no mercy in the NAIA Top 25 this year for teams that drop two games - even if those are two of the longest road trips of the season.
The Bison dropped 27 places from seventh to 34th and the OBU women fell out of the poll entirely from 12th in the Jan. 18 NAIA Top 25.
Both teams came up short in their games against Wayland Baptist and Lubbock Christian and despite having a chance to win all of the games, OBU lost ground.
The up-side is that OBU has nowhere to go but up and after this week, the road schedule is down to four games - at John Brown, Northwestern, USAO and Oklahoma City - with eight home games still to come.
OBU this week will also visit some high-ranked competition without a ranking to lose when they play at Oklahoma Christian on Thursday and at Southern Nazarene on Saturday. The SNU and OC women are ranked sixth and 12th, respectively, and the OC men are fourth.
The Bison are excluded from the Top 25 for the first time since Jan. 8, 2001 - a string of 50 consecutive appearances in the Top 25. The women end a string of five consecutive appearances in the Top 25 after not appearing in the final poll last season.