Illinois Preps Insider’s girls basketball top-20: Post-regional rankings

Survive and advance.

Jim Valvano’s old phrase rang true this past week as many of the top-10 teams struggles in their regional championship games despite being one of the top seeds.

I have been dreading this week’s rankings for a while, as I personally believe this is the hardest rankings week of the year. It’s really difficult to decide how far to drop teams that have been consistent all year long just because of one bad game.

This is especially the case for Proviso East. The Pirates were thrust into an extremely difficult situation, as they were put in an unfamiliar sectional in a terrible gym. Can we really discount what a team has done all season because one game has ended their season?

With all that being said, we still have a job to do and if you dont like playoff rankings, you can just pretend regionals didn’t happen and let the final regular season rankings be the end all be all.

Side note, I think it’s pretty funny how the current top-5 teams were the top-5 in our first rankings. Told you rankings all work themselves out in the end.

1. Montini (30-2) 1

Survived a scare against Lyons

2. Maine West (28-1) 2

Pulled away from GBS in the fourth quarter

3. Nazareth (27-2) 4

Unchallenged during regionals

4. Geneva (26-3) 5

Potential tricky matchup with Wheaton North

5. Benet (27-4) 6

Another team who got a good scare

6. Wheaton-Warrenville South (26-3) 7

Defense continues to lead the way

7. Loyola (24-5) 8

Very impressive performance over Evanston.

8. Bolingbrook (23-4) 9

One of the few top seeds to roll through regionals

9. Lincoln-Way East (27-4) 10

Can they win the big games

10. Marist (22-6) 11

Have to beat McAuley at McAuley

11. Mother McAuley (24-7) 12

Did just enough against Homewood-Flossmoor

12. Naperville Central (27-5) 13

Rivalry game win for a regional

13. Proviso East (28-3) 3

Unfortunate end of the season for the Pirates

14. Kenwood (27-5) 16

Not easy to beat the same team in consecutive games

15. New Trier (24-5) 17

Peaking at the right time.

16. Whitney Young (18-5) NR

Dominating win over Simeon

17. Marian Catholic (23-7) NR

Back to winning ways

18. Warren (24-6) NR

First NSC team to be ranked all year

19 Rolling Meadows (21-8) NR

Have said they’re the best MSL team all year, now the last one standing

20. Marshall (17-7) NR

Death, taxes, Dorothy Gaters winning sectionals