Latest Mercer women's basketball milestone: AP top 25

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com
 

          The history-making season for the Mercer women’s basketball keeps adding to the resume.

          Now, for the first time in 38 years, Mercer is in the AP top 25, as announced Monday.

          When Mercer was last in the poll, Dec. 9, 1980, head coach Susie Gardner was 16 years old.

          The Bears, on a 24-game-winning streak entering the Southern Conference Tournament on Thursday, are 25th with 25 points, a chunk behind LSU’s 85 points and a little ahead of Iowa’s 18.

          “This is a moment to celebrate,” Mercer coach Susie Gardner said in an AP story featured on the wire service Monday. “This is awesome. It’s difficult for a mid-major to get considered and we’re very humbled and very honored without question to be ranked.”

          But, as the story noted, that’s just one more thing to talk about after the season. The Bears are trying to break through the NCAA Tournament ceiling. Chattanooga has kept the Bears out the past two years with wins in the conference tournament championship.

           “We’ve had the heartbreak of the championship game the last two years,” Gardner told the AP. “Last year, being up 13 with 12 minutes to go and losing the game at the end, we had to live with that. We don’t talk about it all the time and we haven’t talked about the (winning) streak. We always talk about the next game.”

          Mississippi State has the nation’s longest winning streak, followed by UConn. Mercer is tied with Baylor, which is ironic, since Mercer president Bill Underwood came to Macon from Baylor, where he was interim president and a law professor.

          The USA Today/Coaches poll, which Mercer broke into last week, comes out on Tuesday. Ironically, one of the voters in the poll is Brenda Nichols, who was Mercer’s head coach for four seasons.

          Green Bay was 21st last week.

          The Collegeinsider.com mid-major poll comes out Tuesday. Last week, Mercer was behind Belmont, Green Bay, and Florida Gulf Coast.

          Green Bay is No. 21 and Belmont No. 22 in the AP poll, with FGCU is tied for 39th.