Suffering a devastating blow to their hopes of earning a top-2 seed for the NJCAA Region VI tournament after losing at Butler on Monday night, the Barton Community College men’s basketball team takes on No. 4-ranked Hutchinson tonight.
It tips at 7:30 inside Kirkman Activity Center.
Hutchinson (24-1, 10-1) fell from No. 1 in this week’s national rankings after losing to Butler seven days ago, the same Grizzlies team that defeated Barton 61-57 on Monday night at The Power Plant in El Dorado.
Barton (21-5, 8-4) dropped out of the national poll after being ranked No. 25 last week. The Cougars sit in third place in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference Western Division, three games back of Hutch, and a half-game ahead of fourth-place Butler (19-6, 7-4).
Hutchinson owns a half-game lead over Seward County (19-7, 10-2) in the West race.
Jayhawk East powerhouse Coffeyville moved to No. 2 in the national rankings, trailing new No. 1 Spartanburg Methodist College.

• Ransom, Key named to share KJCCC player of week award
Seward County’s Kaheem Ransom and Barton’s Al Key have been tabbed as the Jayhawk Conference Verizon Wireless co-players of the week award for their play last week.
Key, a sophomore guard from Decatur, Ga., scored 30 points — the sixth time he has hit that total in his career — and grabbed six rebounds last Wednesday night during a win at Dodge City.
During a home win over Garden City last Saturday night, Key had his 12th career double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds, coupled with a team-high six assists.
For the season, Key is averaging team bests of 18.3 points and 3.8 assists, along with a 6.3 rebounding average.
Key ranks No. 8 on the career scoring list at Barton with 1,092 career points, just 11 points shy of Eric Bush’s 1,103, set during the 1990-91 seasons.

• Barton women facing another tough challenge tonight
The Lady Cougars look to end a six-game skid while entertaining the No. 1-ranked and first-place Hutchinson Lady Blue Dragons (24-1, 10-1) tonight at 5:30 at Kirkman.
It will be ‘Pink Out Night’ as Barton hopes to pack the house with pink for breast cancer awareness.
Barton (12-13 overall, 2-10) has not won since beating Colby, 69-53 at home on Jan. 23.
In the only other meeting between the two teams, on Jan. 16 at  the Hutchinson Sports Arena, the Lady Cougars hung with Hutch throughout and closed a narrow deficit to 55-53 with 3:30 remaining before the Lady Blue Dragons pulled away for a 65-56 victory.