NCAA Basketball: 2018-19 Winners/losers of the week (version 1)
No. 1 Winner – Nate Oats (Buffalo Head Coach)
The upset that many picked during the first week was Buffalo defeating West Virginia, as the Bulls were the preseason mid-major darling. After trailing the whole game, Buffalo came back to tie it in regulation and led by CJ Massinburg’s career-high 43 points were able to pull off the win in Morgantown.
For the team this season, it’s a huge boost to the Bull’s potential NCAA Tournament resume if they can’t win the MAC Tournament. It also bodes well for Massinburg in particular, as his NBA Draft stock definitely risen.
But the big winner is the head coach Nate Oats, who already was the hot name in the coaching carousel last offseason. He recently signed a five-year extension with Buffalo but as we all know, those contracts get changed all the time when leverage is involved. He could’ve left for a power conference program a few months ago but chose to stay. But if an elite school has a new coaching gig next offseason, look for Oats to be the first name considered.
No. 1 Loser – Talk of Duke’s potential undefeated season
It was going to happen with a win anyways but Duke beating Kentucky by 34 points only accelerated those talks of Duke potentially going unbeaten this year. The trio of star freshmen combined to score 83 of the Blue Devil’s 118 points and had similar stats in Sunday’s bout versus Army.
There’s no question that Duke was the most impressive team this early part of the season. But it’s way too immature in the year to even bring it up. In fairness to UK’s John Calipari, the Wildcats had no tape of the freshmen players to gameplan. That won’t be the case for coaches such as Roy Williams (UNC), Tony Bennett (Virginia), Jim Boeheim (Syracuse) and others in the ACC. And remember, the Blue Devils went to Boston College to start conference play a year ago and left with their first loss. A team relying on freshmen will always be vulnerable to a bad road game.
Bracketology winners from week 1. dark. Next
Of course, Duke might not make it out of the Maui Invitational without a loss, as they’ll probably face a pair of top-10 juggernauts in Auburn and Gonzaga in the next week. This is an elite team with title hopes but throwing that “undefeated” talk does a disservice to them and sets unrealistic expectations. Let’s wait until they face the Tar Heels and Cavaliers before we even think about this team in a historic way.