1. At least six ranked teams will drop games.
Two of these are locks. Considering the Champions Classic battles of UK-MSU and Duke-KU, there are bound to be two preseason top-5 teams to fall in their season-openers. Over the course of the rest of the week, though, I think that (at least) four other ranked teams will fall victim to early-season struggles. Preseason rankings are some of the toughest lists to create and there are seemingly always disappointments. This is almost always the case early in the year as well while teams are still working to figure out their rotations and schemes.
Outside of the two obvious ones, here is a look at a few of the other ranked teams that I would put on “upset watch” in the first week of the season:
- No. 5 Louisville (at Miami)
- No. 20 Saint Mary’s (vs. Wisconsin)
- No. 9 North Carolina (vs. Notre Dame)
- No. 18 Ohio State (vs. Cincinnati)
- No. 11 Virginia (at Syracuse)
- No. 24 Auburn (at Davidson)
- No. 16 Baylor (vs. Washington)
- No. 23 Purdue (vs. Texas)
- No. 7 Maryland (vs. Rhode Island)
- No. 6 Florida (vs. FSU)
- No. 21 Arizona (vs. Illinois)
That is a pretty hefty number of teams that are likely to be challenged by their opening-week opposition. This certainly makes for an exciting first few days of action and we are bound to see at least a couple of upsets as a result. Additionally, the teams listed above are just those facing off against relatively highly-regarded squads just outside of the top-25. It wouldn’t be a total shock if a ranked team loses to a underrated mid-major and experiences the well-known “epitome of brutality”.
It is hard to predict exactly which teams will fall during this opening week but I expect that there will be at least four true upsets in addition to the two opening-night losses by top-5 teams (at the Champions Classic).