College Tip-Off: Atlantic Sun Upsets, Freshman Debuts Highlight Early Games

Upset City

With the season just a few days old, I can already tell it’s about to be one of the most exciting season we’ve seen in many years.

We had Gardner Webb defeating Kentucky, Mercer defeating Southern California, and Belmont defeating Cincinnati. These rank right up there with Appalachian State defeating Michigan in football earlier this year.

The great thing is, Mercer, Belmont, and Gardner Webb are all in the same conference.

"We don't have a frame of reference for any of this," said Atlantic Sun Conference commissioner Ted Gumbart, obviously still in shock over these upsets. "The conference is simply doing things it's never done before. We've had big wins in the past, but the biggest thing about this is how they've been layered on top of each other in such a short time."

Dazzling Freshmen

Even though all the great stars like Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, and Brandon Wright all left for the NBA, this year's freshman class might be even better.  

Michael Beasley, A freshman forward for Kansas State, had a very impressive debut the other night. He scored 32 points and grabbed 24 rebounds in a win over Sacramento State. The 24 rebounds was a Big 12 record.

"As far as Beasley jumping into the record books, I figured it was going to happen pretty soon," a Teammate said. "Mike is excellent on rebounding. That's what he does. He's out there just snatching up everything that comes off the rim."

Beasley, rated the number one incoming freshman by Rivals.com, broke the Big 12 mark of 23 rebounds set by Kevin Durant—who starred at Texas as a freshman last season—and Kansas' Nick Collison.

Indiana fans welcomed Eric Gordon by chanting his name before their game against UT-Chattanooga began. The highly touted freshman responded with an opening act that lived up to the hype. Gordon ended up with 33 points, the most ever by an Indiana player in his college debut.

"If he plays like he did tonight, we'll be OK," coach Kelvin Sampson said, drawing laughter. "He's going to play hard every night, and the thing I like is that he practices at the same pace every day. When I was at Michigan State, Magic Johnson was like that. There's a reason those guys are good."

While it may be too early to compare Johnson and Gordon, the numbers he put up are outstanding and proved why he was one of the most highly touted players coming out of high school. I firmly believe if he can put up these numbers night in and night out, Indiana will a power this year in the Big 10.

The other exciting freshmen in the country are Derrick Rose of Memphis and OJ Mayo of USC. They both were highly touted out of high school and put up great numbers in their openers.

Rose had 17 points, six rebounds and five assists in his collegiate debut.

Mayo led the Trojans with 32 points, but unlike all the other talented freshman, couldn’t lead his team to victory. As mentioned, the Trojans were upset by Mercer by 15.   

With all the exciting new players in college basketball this season, this should be a very entertaining year. Expect more upsets and some surprise teams to make it to the Final Four.

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