No. 4 Loser – LSU Tigers
LSU was riding high to start the season. They were 4-0 and ranked in the top 20 as they headed to the Advocare Invitational as one of the favorites. They got by Charleston but then they ran into some real competition. They did hang with a tough Florida State team on Saturday, but then they were beaten by double digits to a Oklahoma State team that was not expected to do much this year.
LSU was one of the teams expected to help prove the SEC is back but fell flat when they came up to the big stage. The Tigers may be better, but they need to win the big time games if they want to be taken seriously.
No. 4 Winner – Memphis Tigers
Memphis brought in hometown favorite Penny Hardaway to be their head coach in hopes that he could turn around a once-proud program that had fallen on tough times. Well, last week they went 1-2 including losses to Oklahoma State and Charleston. They also have a loss to LSU and took two overtimes to beat Yale.
So why are they a winter this week? Well, Hardaway was able to reel in the nation’s top recruit in James Wiseman. It didn’t hurt that Hardaway coached him a couple of years in high school, but either way, he was able to land him despite offers from Kentucky and Kansas to name a few. This year was not supposed to be great for the Tigers and Hardaway was going to have some growing pains, but if bringing in Wiseman is signs of things to come then Memphis is going to be a top 25 team sooner rather than later.