FORT WORTH, Texas – After two weeks of knocking on the door of the NAIA national top 25 list, the Texas Wesleyan University men’s basketball team was finally rewarded on Tuesday, earning the 23rd spot in the rankings for the week of January 15-21 after impressive victories over conference rivals Texas College and Huston-Tillotson College.

It is the first time in nearly 20 years that the Rams, who rejoined the NAIA this season after spending the last four years in the NCAA Division II ranks, have been nationally ranked. In March of 1983, the Rams entered the NAIA national tournament as the 13 seed, losing in the second round of the 32-team tournament to Santa Fe University.

After a terrific start to the season, NAIA voters finally began to recognize the Rams’ accomplishments two weeks ago. They received 18 votes for the January 7th rankings, falling nine votes shy of the 25th spot. Last week, after a double-digit victory over conference rival UT-Permian Basin, that total increased to 22 votes, but was still nine votes short of making the list. On Tuesday, the Rams garnered 45 votes, five more than the 24th-ranked team, Westminster College (Utah), and just ten shy of the top 20.

“We’re extremely happy with the national recognition,” said head coach Terry Waldrop. “We’ve beaten some good teams this year, but still feel like we can continue to improve. Hopefully, we can keep climbing in the rankings every week.”

The Rams began the season by winning an overtime thriller against Mid America University, then continued the streak with five more victories before losing their first game of the season on the road to McNeese State University on November 22. The Cowboys, an NCAA Division I program, are the two-time reigning champions of the Southland Conference, and have played in the last two NCAA championship tournaments. Wesleyan turned it around the following evening, returning home to defeat Schreiner University by 28 points. After a week off, the Rams again faced an NCAA Division I team, this time traveling to Arlington to play UTA. After hanging with the Mavericks for 30 minutes, UTA managed to pull away, handing Wesleyan their second loss of the year.

Conference play began a few nights later, and the Rams bombarded metroplex rival Paul Quinn College for 96 points and won by 20. Three more victories followed, including two conference matches, before the Rams lost a pair of games to perennial NAIA powers Oklahoma Christian and Southern Nazarene at a tournament in Oklahoma.

Conference play resumed, and so did Wesleyan’s winning ways. The Rams defeated The University of Texas of the Permian Basin on January 11 before winning the two games last week.

The Rams travel to Oklahoma this weekend to face Langston University on Saturday and Bacone College on Monday, then head East to Marshall to play Wiley College on Thursday night. The next home game for the Rams is Saturday, February 1 against Southwestern Assemblies of God University at 7:30 PM.