NCAA Basketball: 2018-19 Mid-major awards (week 1)

Best Intra-State Upset – Idaho State 72 Boise State 69

The Bengals came back from 18 down to upset their bigger brother Boise State in their first game in a post-Chandler Hutchison world.

Best Intra-City upset – Northeastern 81 Harvard 71

I don’t know if this really counts as an upset as Northeastern is probably just straight up better heading into the season, but Harvard is certainly more known to the casual basketball fan. In the Battle of the Boston, George Washington transfer Jordan Roland led the Huskies past the Crimson with 35 points on a cool 7-10 from three-point range.

Wildest Week – Stony Brook

Stony Brook came back from down 22-0 to beat George Washington 77-74 in overtime in the season opener. Their encore was an 83-81 road win over South Carolina.

Wildest Upset – Texas Southern 72 Baylor 69

Texas Southern erased a 17-point second-half deficit thanks to 23 points from LSU transfer Jalyn Patterson. Honorable mention to the wildest almost upset as Creighton closed on a 24-6 run to come back and beat East Tennessee State.

Biggest All-Mid-Major Upset – Furman 60  Loyola-Chicago 58

Not the expected start for last season’s Final Four darlings.

Best Conference – Conference USA

Charlotte upset Oklahoma State 66-64, Marshall beat a strong Hofstra team 76-72 (Jon Elmore had 30-8-5-4 and Justin Wright-Foreman had 34 and 6), Louisiana Tech shocked Wichita State 71-58, Southern Miss beat SMU 74-64, and North Texas somehow already has four wins.

Best Mid-Major Matchup – Illinois State’s Early Slate

This category will probably be featured every week. And obviously several of the aforementioned games could have been included here. But this week, I cheated by including two Illinois State games.

The Redbirds opened their season, a season that has high expectations, with a pair of bracket busters against perennial mid-major powers. They beat FGCU 74-66 in the opener and then fell to Belmont 100-89. Strong opening-season schedule for a mid-major with high aspirations this season.

Honorable mentions to Montana 81-Georgia State 74, Davidson 79-Dartmouth 76, and South Dakota State 79-Grand Canyon 74 (featuring 31 points from Daum’s running mate David Jenkins).