The college basketball season is back and the action is already in full swing. The first week of the season didn’t show us a lot quite yet as we’re only just getting this season going. The NCAA Tournament is still more than four months away and weeks remain until league play starts, but that’s not to say that these games at the beginning of November aren’t important.
For the more prominent and nationally ranked teams, nonconference play is all about the opportunities. The holiday tournaments don’t get going until next week, but there are still other challenges on the early schedules. Nonconference is about figuring out lineups and rotations, though many of these teams aren’t properly tested as frequently as they will be when Big 12 or SEC play comes to a head.
There are always early upsets and unexpected results, though a few teams have certainly underwhelmed in the opening week of the season. Multiple power conference teams have lost buy games against mid-major foes, while a few others have had close calls. However, the disappointment we’re focusing on today aren’t these types of games; we’re looking at ranked teams that fared poorly last week.
All schedules are different and these teams will be judged differently based on their results, but seven teams ranked in the Top 25 lost a game in the opening week of the season. A few of those teams were significantly challenged while a few others lost very winnable contests. As we mentioned, each situation is different, but we’re going to take a closer look at each of those teams and figured out what we can make of them after their initial losses of the season. Let’s not waste any more time and start running through those teams.