Weeks like last week are a great reminder that college basketball is the greatest thing in the whole world. I’m sure many of you are still solidly in football mode (I’m struggling to transition, too), but college hoops is back and better than ever. Villanova snuck their way into the top spot of the ranking thanks to a slew of completely insane events that occurred this week.
Former number one Duke was rolling and looking like they were totally and completely back. Then, they lost to a Boston College team that had lost three games in a row and have a total of 6 ACC wins in the last three years. For reference, Duke has 37 conference wins in the last three years. That is the headlining upset, but Kansas lost twice at home for the first time in Bill Self’s career, including a loss to Washington and a ten point loss at Allen Fieldhouse to Arizona State.
Those were just the two biggest, too. Notre Dame lost to Ball State, which sounds like it should make sense based on the name of the school because Ball State sounds like something made up for a video game. Bobby Hurley and Arizona State are in the top ten for the first time since 1981. Florida lost twice to fall out of the rankings. Florida State, who beat Florida, entered the rankings at 19. Seton Hall reentered the top 15 where they belong.
Basketball leaves room for things like this to happen. If Ball State played Notre Dame in football, Ball state would leave the stadium looking like the sludge Eric Andre eats to scare Jack McBrayer. But in basketball, there is a chance. Duke losing to Boston College is like Alabama football losing to 2017 Tennessee. In college hoops, it doesn’t ever happen the same way. And that is shown in the numbers. In college football all of this year, there were 44 different teams in the poll. Through 6 weeks in college hoops, there have been 34 different teams ranked in the AP Poll.
This is the kind of chaos that endears college hoops so deeply to the American people. It’s hard to not love a sport where every game has a chance to see something that alters the entire landscape of the sport. This is the first week where we really get a good reminder, but it for sure won’t be the last instance.
Once conference season ramps up, it only gets better and better. And with many teams that are usually lesser having productive seasons, like ASU who was projected to be ninth in the PAC 12, it makes the possibility of season altering losses for powers more probable. Similarly, the SEC seems to have caught up to Kentucky a bit. The second tier of the BIG 10 is a complete mystery at this point because of the early season chaos, too. Teams like St. John’s and Georgetown seem to be making comebacks in the Big East.
The stars are aligning for a season as insane as the 2016 season where nothing made any sense and it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Nova and Michigan State seem to have it most of the way together, but after that, all of college hoops is a mush of unidentifiable sludge. Duke seems to maybe be back, but maybe they just never really are. Kentucky has no guy. Bill Self says he has the softest team he has had at Kansas. So all there is to do now is strap in and hope Grayson Allen doesn’t trip anyone to take the media attention away from any of the upsets.