NCAA Hoops Wrap-Up: Pre-season tournaments galore!

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You like my new graphic? I threw that together last week using Canva and I am pretty happy with it. I feel like the basketball needs to be blended a little more, but other than that, I am quite content.

The upsets were few and far between this weekend in NCAA hoops. In fact, Friday and Saturday brought us exactly zero upsets among the top 25 teams. Probably the closest we would see was #20 Maryland only beating Hofstra by two points on Friday night.

On Saturday, there really weren’t any games that came close to being an upset. A couple of early season tournaments did start up and I feel those should be noted. The Roman Main Event, and Hall of Fame Tip-Off Naismith both got rolling and finish up this weekend.

Michigan State was in action against Eastern Michigan on Saturday, but sadly I was not able to watch the game. I did see that they won quite easily (which isn’t shocking), but the fact that they are still out of the top 25 bugs me. It makes it harder for me to write these posts and cover my Spartans when they don’t show up in the regular rankings. I will admit, they have yet to beat a team that should put them in the rankings, but I think that is only a matter of time.

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I was a bit torn because the Michigan State game that I wasn’t able to watch (YouTube TV didn’t carry it) and my nieces game were both on at the same time. Of course my nieces game won out, but it turned out that was not an option either.

When Covid hit, many school districts contracted out with a company called NFHS network to install Pixellot camera systems in their gyms and football fields. For a monthly subscription, families/friends can watch their students play a variety of sports. The school district I work for had one of the systems installed, so I know much more about the ins and outs of it than I normally would.

It appeared that the school my niece was playing at needed to restart the computer that controls the camera. Due to that not being done, we were forced to stare at a black screen for the complete game. Of course we found other things to do, but it is a bit annoying when you are paying for a service that districts don’t have protocols in place to ensure that the cameras are operational on game day.

I have first hand experience with this and after talking to a very disappointed parent who wasn’t able to watch their grandson kick in the JV football game, I now have a procedure in place with the athletic department to always ensure the cameras are operational ahead of time.

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Sunday gave us four top 25 basketball games with many of them being further or final matchups in those tournaments that I was talking about earlier.

The upsets were plentiful with #6 Purdue taking out #5 Villanova, and unranked Arizona taking it to #4 Michigan in a 80 to 62 route. That is awesome! I was a little worried about Michigan this year, but seeing them drop a couple big games early in the season has me a little less afraid.

Yesterday there were ten top 25 games and there were another two upsets in those games. Unranked Ohio State took out #21 Seton Hall and unranked Cincinnati took down #14 Illinois. UCLA continues to win and it looks like Houston still has some momentum from last season as well. Gonzaga remains the #1 pick destroying Central Michigan University 107 to 54. I can't say that one surprises me. I hope CMU got a good chunk of money to play that game. It's not like you really expect a MAC10 team to take down a team like Gonzaga.

I look forward to seeing how this week shakes out. Check back at the end of the week for an update as always!

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