24 hours of chaos

While college football spent Friday night and Saturday setting up its playoff, college basketball provided its own version of March Madness. Five Top 20 teams lost over a 24-hour period, including three of the Top 10 teams (reminding sports fans once again why upsets are essential to the postseason), not to mention a handful of buzzer-beaters, and a thrilling showdown of Top 5 teams.

Let’s dive in.

1. Should anyone hit the panic button?

First, the basics: Between 10 pm ET on Friday and Saturday, No. 1 Purdue, No. 3 Marquette, No. 7 Duke, No. 12 Kentucky and No. 18 Villanova all lost as favorites.

Throw in a couple of massive upsets from Bucknell over Penn State (the Bison were 21.5-point underdogs and had only beaten teams two 300+ kenpom teams) and Norfolk State over VCU (12.5-point favorites) and it really did feel like a day befitting March Madness.

(Added bonus! Sunday added two more to the mix: Southern beat No. 21 Miss State 60-59, and App State held off Auburn 69-64. The Tigers were favored by 7 on the road, so that’s a not a surprise. But the Bulldogs were 20+ point home favorites to the SWAC school. At least UNLV has company now.)

ANYWAY, about those ranked teams. It’s early December. We’re four weeks into the season. Should these be just part of the typical learning curve? Or is there more to consider when it comes to these results?

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.