Bracketology 2023: Louisville, Oregon among first week's biggest losers

Bracketology 2023: Louisville, Oregon among first week’s biggest losers

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - FEBRUARY 26: Head coach Leonard Hamilton of the Florida State Seminoles reacts to a play during a game against the Virginia Cavaliers at John Paul Jones Arena on February 26, 2022 in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Photo by Ryan M. Kelly/Getty Images) /

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Bracketology Villanova Wildcats guard Mark Armstrong Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports /

The first week of the 2022-23 season didn’t have a ton of marquee matchups in NCAA Basketball, which meant that not many teams had the opportunities to enhance their respective resumes. But on the flip side, that also meant that there were more chances for programs to lose Quad 3 or 4 games that would hurt their chances for an at-large bid.

The good news is that there are 30 more games for all of these following teams so make up for the early slips but the bad news is that their margin of error has also slipped for potential future mistakes. Here are the top 10 losers from the first week of the season.

10. Oklahoma State Cowboys

After beating UT-Arlington to open the season, OK State remained at home to take on Southern Illinois. Unfortunately for them, the Cowboys fell by one point. On one hand, the Salukis were a preseason top-3 team in the Missouri Valley Conference so it wouldn’t be viewed as an “awful” loss. But then Southern Illinois lost to Southern Indiana, a brand new D-I program on Sunday, hurting them, which hurts OK State as well.

The Cowboys did prevent future bleeding by beating Oakland on the road on Sunday, which has an outside chance of being a Quad 2 victory. But assuming that they’ll lose their fair share of games in Big 12 play, this was an avoidable defeat for the program.

9. Villanova Wildcats

The Kyle Nepture era at Villanova was always going to have some early bumps since two of their three best players (Cam Whitmore and Justin Moore) are currently out, though Whitmore has a chance to return this week. After beating La Salle, the Wildcats then went on the road to play a Temple team that had lost to Wagner a few days prior. However, the Owls pulled off the big upset to boost its own resume, while hurting Nova a little bit.

This isn’t to say that Villanova is in any early trouble but the upcoming schedule is a little daunting. They have Michigan State, Oklahoma, and Iowa State, who is the first opponent of the PK85 Tournament coming up. They’ll need Whitmore back soon or else risk more losses coming.

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