NCAA Basketball: Biggest Winners and Losers from the 2018-19 non-conference
By Adam Childs
No. 2 Loser – Pac-12
Can the Pac-12 still be considered a power five conference after the start of this year? It what could have been one of the worst performances by a conference in the first half of the year ever, it leaves the Pac-12 with no ranked teams in the AP poll. Arizona State is just outside but after their huge upset of Kansas they followed that up by losing to Princeton.
Arizona has looked just average and Oregon has been one of the biggest disappointments so far this year. We could start listing the bad losses for the conference this year but it would be too many words. This conference is bad and is in serious jeopardy of not getting an at-large bid come tournament time. Anybody could win the conference because nobody is great.
No. 2 Winner – Big Ten
The complete opposite of the Pac-12 has been the Big Ten this year. A year after only getting four teams in the NCAA tournament, the Big Ten desperately needed a bounce back year and so far they have got it. They got off to a great start and went toe-to-toe with the ACC in their annual challenge. They would tie the ACC with their biggest win coming when Michigan drilled North Carolina by 19 in a game that was not that close.
The Big Ten has Michigan and Michigan State in the top ten. Ohio State is inside the top 15 and four other teams are in the top 25. That is the most of any conference and it looks like the Big Ten could realistically get nine or ten teams into the tournament. The ACC still looks like they are just a little bit better overall but the Big Ten is right on their heels.