NCAA Basketball: 68 defining moments of the 2019-20 season

9. Dayton announces itself. (Nov. 27th)

Dayton started this season well. The Flyers entered the campaign with moderately high expectations to compete near the top of the A10 and proved that by taking care of business against low-level teams at home. At the Maui Invitational, though, Dayton made a statement in its opening game by blowing the doors off of Georgia by 29 points. Head coach Anthony Grant’s team then took down Virginia Tech by 27 before facing Kansas in the final.

Many thought that the Flyers might be the outmatched by the Jayhawks in that game considering it would their third game in three days. That, though, was not the case. Even though Dayton wound up losing, it proved that it could play with the best by pushing Kansas all the way to overtime. Jalen Crutcher hit big-time shots while Obi Toppin made his case as one of the best players in the country.

The Maui Invitational was a wake-up call to pay attention to the Flyers.

10. San Diego State makes a statement. (Nov. 28th)

Speaking of mid-majors making statements over Thanksgiving week, San Diego State did the same. The Aztecs were widely expected to be the worst team in the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational that also included Creighton, Iowa, and Texas Tech even after they knocked off BYU on the road a few weeks earlier.

SDSU quickly turned that perception on its head, though, by blowing Creighton out of the gym on opening night by a whopping 31 points. The team then defeated Iowa by 10 the following night.

This was an impressive set of games at the time for San Diego State but the results aged extremely well too. Creighton wound up sharing the Big East conference title while Iowa was largely projected to land a No. 5-7 seed at the NCAA Tournament. San Diego State announced itself in Sin City with these performances as it moved to 8-0 to end November.

The team would not lose a single game until Feb. 22nd.