NCAA Basketball: 5 biggest winners and losers from week 1 of 2022-23

Winner – SWAC

The SWAC versus Pac 12 Legacy Series was not kind to the west coast’s premiere conference. But it was a very nice week for the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The list of wins is as follows:

Texas Southern 67, Arizona State 66 in overtime

Grambling State 83, Colorado 74

Alcorn State 66, Wichita State 57

And Arkansas Pine-Bluff almost knocked off preseason top 25 team in TCU and had another respectable, 8-point loss to the Oklahoma Sooners.

Does this actually mean anything for the destiny of the SWAC as a multi-bid league? No, of course not. But for a conference that is usually subjected to one beat down after another, they’ve had a pretty good week. Unfortunately for another conference, part of that is at the expense of the Pac 12. Let’s talk about that.

Loser – Pac 12

Pac 12 teams have lost to the following teams:

UC Irvine

Florida Gulf Coast

Grambling State

Boise State

Texas Southern

UC Davis

Kansas State

It really doesn’t get much worse for a major conference to begin the season. Colorado saved the week to a certain extent with the win over Tennessee but that only takes you so far on a week that you genuinely went toe-to-toe with the SWAC. The Pac 12 got just three teams into the tournament a season ago and they didn’t do themselves any favors if they plan on building on that in 2023. The non conference slate is so important for a conference like the Pac 12 to build a resume prior to league play. There are very few opportunities for resume-building wins in the Pac 12 and poor non conference performances will solidify that even further.

Thank goodness for Mick Cronin and Tommy Lloyd winning the games they are supposed to.