Connecticut… Gonzaga… Houston… North Carolina…
That’s the beginning of the list of Associated Press top 25 teams whose unranked opponents were knocked off during Thanksgiving week. For underdogs, it was indeed a feast with all the trimmings. We could go on all day.
Alabama… Indiana… Arkansas… Creighton… St. John’s… Xavier…
Ranked teams lost 17 games to unranked foes the last week in November. Fifteen different members of the top 25 were victims.
Rutgers… Arizona… Texas A&M… Xavier… Mississippi State…
Included were the unusual, the unexpected and sometimes the unexplainable. It all left a strong whiff of volatile parity hovering over college basketball. Many future horizons have been altered in the past week, inside and outside the rankings. It would have been hard to predict.
Connecticut went to Maui ranked No. 2 and 47-3 in its last 50 games, then came home in last place after matching that defeat total in barely 48 hours. The Huskies’ two themes for the trip were losing and Dan Hurley in constant rage at the officials, and neither had a good look.
“It was a humbling trip obviously for the program that’s accomplished what we’ve accomplished,” Hurley said. “I just think we need to get back and we need to regroup both from a psyche standpoint and come up with a different plan defensively for the most part.”
MONDAY IN MAUI: A recap of a wild opening day of the Maui Invitational, by the numbers
Houston bringing a 4-3 record back from the Players Era tournament after losing to Alabama and San Diego State, both in overtime. That’s the most defeats the Cougars have taken in November in 12 years. Their third loss last season did not come until Feb. 3, and the year before that, March 12.
North Carolina trailing by 18, 15 and 14 points in the first halves of its three games in Maui, losing two of them.
Auburn, back from Maui with maybe the strongest argument in the nation for No. 1, has now beaten Houston, Iowa State, North Carolina, and Memphis. Those four teams combined 14-1 when they ran into the Tigers. And Johni Broome is returning from Hawaii as the hot name for national player of the year.
“This has been a great springboard, but the confidence that we’re going to get from this is we know we can play with anybody,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “Where do we go from here? I promise you this: we will stay humble and hungry. We will not begin to think much of ourselves.”
Oregon headed to the Players Era tournament unranked and tied for 38th in the voting but came back champions and 8-0, having picked off Texas A&M and Alabama.
Creighton sagging from unbeaten to losing three in a row, putting up 110 shots from the 3-point arc and missing 79 of them while getting outscored 57-17 in bench points. Ryan Kalkbrenner, with his 26-point average, produced 24 points — in three games. Then he sat out a win over Notre Dame with a lower-body injury. What can a coach say to a team after all that? “Same thing I’ve told my teams for 36 years,” Greg McDermott said. “Teams who point fingers lose. And we’re not going to do that.”
Oklahoma is going to the Battle 4 Atlantis as the team voted to finish 15th in its first year in the SEC, and coming back the champion, its three victories, all one-possession games in the final 10 seconds. Three different players led each game in scoring with at least 24 points.
West Virginia, 8-23 last season, signaling a clear message of revival under new coach Darian DeVries in the Bahamas, no matter how long it took. The Mountaineers defeated No. 3 Gonzaga and No. 24 Arizona, both in overtime. Sandwiched In between, the Mountaineers lost to Louisville – in overtime. It’s the first run of back-to-back-to-back OT games in school history. The Zags team they surprised had been 5-0 by an average of 32 points and not trailed in 126 minutes.
OVERTIME THRILLER: West Virginia men’s basketball stuns No. 3 Gonzaga
Louisville, 12-52 the past two seasons, playing in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship game.
Florida, back from the ESPN Events Invitational, was a national force to be noticed, whipping Wake Forest by 17 and Wichita State by 37. The Gators are now 8-0 for only the fourth time in school history, their closest win has been by 13 points.
Indiana, seeking to prove itself in the Battle 4 Atlantis, down 38 points to Louisville and then 23 to Gonzaga.
Dayton led North Carolina by 21 and Iowa State by nine and lost to both in the final minutes. Then, it whipped UConn by 18, its first win over a top-2 team since 1974.
No. 24 Arizona, having won three games 93-64, 102-44, and 104-71, is now the loser of four of five.
All-American Hunter Dickinson sat out the last 10:26 for Kansas against Duke after a flagrant-2 foul, but the Jayhawks won anyway. The young Duke lineup is still learning about late-game execution. In the final two minutes of their losses to Kentucky and Kansas, the Blue Devils scored only three points with five turnovers. “I think us being in these moments, we’ll understand how the game is called, we’ll understand how teams are going to play us, we’ll understand time and score. All those kinds of things, we need to continue to improve,” coach Jon Scheyer said. His freshmen have been put in the fire with the schedule. Duke has already seen Kentucky, Arizona and Kansas, and Wednesday hosts Auburn.
Purdue blew a 17-point lead over Ole Miss, then won the Rady Children’s Invitational on a last-second putback by Myles Colvin. That gave the Boilermakers a 9-1 record in their past ten games against the SEC and a 12-2 mark against ranked opponents since last season.
Illinois won the Ivisic Bowl 90-77 over Arkansas. Tomislav Ivisic had 21 points and ten rebounds for the Illini, outdoing twin brother Zvonimir’s 13 and six for the Razorbacks.
Colorado knocking off the defending national champion – UConn in this case – for the first time since 1953.
Saint Mary’s suffocating USC 71-36, the fewest points the Gaels had allowed a power conference opponent since 1942.
Rutgers ended the week by beating Notre Dame and taking Alabama and Texas A&M to the wire after beginning the week by losing to Kennesaw State.
Charleston Southern, 1-7 on the season and 1-68 all-time against current ACC members, barging into Miami and stunning the Hurricanes 83-79.
Monmouth, 0-8 on the season, 1-34 all-time against the Big East, and 0-15 against Seton Hall, rolling past the Pirates by 12 points.
From Sunday through Saturday, there were 19 Division I games around the nation that went overtime, and 50 more won by one possession. The sextet of Connecticut, Houston, North Carolina, Indiana, Creighton, and Arizona that started the week a combined 20-5 ended it 26-18. The week began with 43 teams still unbeaten around the nation. By Saturday night, it was down to 17, five in the SEC.
All college basketball could do was take a deep breath. And hope that March is as good as late November has been.
