XU Gold Rush in preseason top 25 for 2nd straight season

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — Xavier University of Louisiana is No. 21 in the NAIA Division I Men's Basketball Coaches' Top 25 announced Monday. It's the first time in coach Dannton Jackson's nine seasons that the Gold Rush are preseason top-25 in consecutive years.

Xavier, 27-6 and the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference Tournament runner-up this past season, returns nine lettermen and four starters. The Rush will attempt to qualify for the Buffalo Funds-NAIA Division I National Championship for the sixth time in eight seasons. This past season the XU men won their first 13 games and qualified for nationals with their most victories since the 1983-84 season.

Xavier was 20th in the 2010-11 preseason and spent three weeks in the top 10.

The other GCAC team to receive votes was defending tournament champion Tougaloo, which is 13th. Xavier will visit Tougaloo on Jan. 23 and play host to the Bulldogs on Feb. 13. Two teams which received votes, Mobile and William Carey, will play Xavier in home-and-away non-conference series this season.

Defending champion Pikeville is the preseason No. 1 after receiving five of 12 first-place votes. Four other teams received first-place votes.

Earlier in the day Xavier's women's team earned a preseason No. 16 ranking. That makes Xavier one of four NAIA Division I schools — the others are Azusa Pacific, Evangel and Union (Tenn.) — with men's and women's basketball teams to earn preseason top-25 rankings in 2010-11 and 2011-12.

The Gold Rush will open the season at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 at The Barn against Carver College of Atlanta.

The first regular-season poll will be announced Dec. 5.

NAIA Division I Men's Basketball Coaches' Top 25(first-place votes in parentheses — includes 2010-11 final records) Rank Team Record Points Last 1 Pikeville (5) 30-7 300 24 2 Mountain State (3) 33-4 295 3 3 Robert Morris (Chicago) (2) 32-2 293 1 4 Concordia (Calif.) (1) 32-4 288 2 5 Martin Methodist (1) 34-3 268 6 6 LSU-Shreveport 30-4 255 4 7 Oklahoma Baptist 24-9 254 9 8 Georgetown (Ky.) 32-5 240 7 9 Azusa Pacific 29-6 233 8 10 Texas Wesleyan 30-4 223 6 11 Rogers State 22-12 202 25 12 Shorter 23-8 188 RV 13 Tougaloo 27-4 185 11 14 Columbia (Mo.) 26-6 166 18 15-tie Biola 28-6 158 13 15-tie Montana State Northern 24-9 158 19 17 St. Catharine 22-9 149 14 18 Southern Nazarene 26-8 141 10 19 Evangel 26-9 132 15 20 Southern Poly 23-10 121 RV 21 Xavier 27-6 94 17 22 Union (Tenn.) 26-7 88 12 23 Carroll (Mont.) 23-9 75 22 24 Saint Xavier 19-13 66 NR 25 Fresno Pacific 20-11 63 RV Others receiving votes: Park 55, Lee (Tenn.) 45, MidAmerica Nazarene 33, Mobile 31, Oklahoma Christian 26, Campbellsville 24, Our Lady of the Lake 22, Freed-Hardeman 21, Life 16, MontanaWestern 12, Westminster (Utah) 3, William Carey 1, Northwestern Oklahoma 1, St. Francis (Ill.) 1, Benedictine (Kan.) 1, Westmont 1, Emmanuel (Ga.) 1, Cumberland 1, Cumberlands 1.

By Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
VISIT: XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
VISIT: XULAATHLETICS