There were many big results that affected the Bracketology landscape during Thanksgiving week. Which teams were the biggest winners and losers?
Feast Week. Extra days off from work. Stomachs filled with turkey and stuffing. College basketball day and night across the country. And what a glorious week it was.
While you undoubtedly caught wind of Michigan stepping out and announcing themselves as a national title contender, you may not have noticed some of the other goings-on around college basketball.
There was a lot going on. You’d be forgiven for not catching everything.
But even though Selection Sunday is still many moons away, wins and losses in November can have a serious impact on the committee in March. Everybody loves to take home a preseason tournament trophy from some idyllic island, but a couple of Quadrant 1 or 2 victories wouldn’t hurt either in terms of Bracketology.
There is much to be said about the cramped moving and shaking in college basketball’s highest echelon. Duke, Michigan State, Gonzaga, Oregon, North Carolina, and Texas Tech all lost at least one game last week. Some of them lost two.
Other high-majors and Top 25 teams duked it out and traded blows in preseason tournaments across the country.
But at this point, arguing about where those teams will eventually end up seems trivial. For right now, it’s good enough to know that they’re all probably going to be top-eight seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
Instead, I’d rather get down in the trenches and look at the teams that are closer to the cut line—or at least, the ones that were thought to be around the bubble.
Some teams that came into the season with Big Dance hype are living up to the praise, while others are wilting under the spotlight. Still, others have overachieved relative to their more meager expectations.
Here’s a look at which potential bubble teams did the most to build their early NCAA Tournament resume, as well as the ones who did the most to hurt their chances.