NCAA Basketball: Purdue and Memphis among week’s biggest winners and losers

Colgate Raiders

Colgate had some mid-major top-25 buzz coming into the season and was picked to finish second in the Patriot League, but after this week they sit 3-5 thanks to losses to Niagara who was picked to finish 10th in the MAAC and has losses to St. Thomas and Monmouth and a Northeastern team whose best win is a one-point win over Patriot League favorite Boston University.

The problem for Colgate in these two games was defense, Niagara and Northeastern combined to shoot 53.4% from the field and 37% from deep, well above their season averages of 44% and 32% respectively and in their two Division I wins, those numbers were 41.9% and 25.9%.

Maryland Terrapins

I wanted the last spot to go to UC-Davis for their 19-point loss to Division II Academy of Art, but they missed the cut because the game was last Sunday.  So, the final spot will go to Maryland for having a preseason top-25 team and a 5-4 team that seemingly had enough outside forces, whether it be a fanbase or people within the university to lead to an immediate parting of the ways with head coach Mark Turgeon.

While Turgeon never really got the Terrapins over the hump in March, he was a winning coach averaging 22 wins over 10 full seasons. If they wanted to make a change, either do it prior to the year or at the end of this year. In my opinion, the way this went down is not a good look for the school.