What We Learned This Week

Yes, Big Ten powers Purdue, Wisconsin, and Michigan State all took losses this week to Duke, Marquette, and UNC, respectively. But the conference also had some big-time wins from middle-of-the-pack teams.

Michigan knocked off Duke at home. Ohio State won on the road at Miami FL and Notre Dame. Even teams like Minnesota (Virginia and Cornell), Northwestern (Florida State and DePaul), Illinois (Georgia), and Penn State (@ Georgia Tech) posted good non-conference wins.

Now I know it is early, but take a peek at the conference standings. Ignore Indiana, and the three ranked teams in the conference are all in the bottom four. I'm not saying that the Big Ten is better than the Big East, but this conference is definitely better than it was last year.

More and more, this season is looking like UNC and then everyone else. Yes, UConn is undefeated, but they have struggled in beating a couple of inferior opponents (Buffalo, LaSalle). Louisville, Notre Dame, Duke, Michigan State, and UCLA—all teams considered to be favorites for the Final Four—have lost games to inferior opponents.

Oklahoma and Gonzaga are undefeated, but not necessarily blowing teams out. Texas, Tennessee, Xavier, Purdue...those teams do not exactly strike fear in the hearts of opponents. Pitt is winning games big, including a win in the Legends classic where they beat Texas Tech and Washington State, but does Pitt have enough offensive firepower to hang with UNC?

While all this is going on, UNC is cruising, going 8-0 while winning by an average of 30.4 ppg (including wins by 15 over Notre Dame and 35 over Michigan State). Should I even throw in there that Tyler Hansbrough has been in and out of the lineup and Marcus Ginyard and Tyler Zeller have not been playing?

The mid-majors that were supposed to fall off this year, well, haven't. Butler lost pretty much everyone except for Matt Howard from last year's team but has started the season out 8-0, including picking up two wins this week on the road to start out the Horizon League season (one of them was over preseason league favorite Cleveland State in dramatic fashion).

Western Kentucky, who lost Courtney Lee, Tyrone Brazelton, and Ty Rogers, has beaten Louisville and Georgia. Even teams like Xavier (who can hardly be called a mid-major) and Dayton, who lost a ton from their teams last year, have started the season out undefeated with multiple wins over top 25 competition.

At the same time, some of the teams expected to be good have been, well, not good. Siena has started out 4-3. Kent State is now 3-5 after starting out 3-0. Cleveland State (5-4), Wright State (0-6), San Diego (4-4), and Southern Illinois (3-4) have all sputtered out of the gates.

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