The first week of the season is in the books, and your favorite mid-major basketball team has played somewhere between one and three regular-season basketball games. (Unless you’re a fan of the gauntlet-seeking Utah Tech Trailblazers, Presbyterian Blue Hose or New Haven Chargers, who played four games in the season’s first eight days.)
There were a ton of games, and you only have two eyes. So let’s recap the action from the first week:
The opening day MAC-SBC Challenge and Field of 68 Showcase were BANGERS…
…even when the stream was not. If you’re able to get yourself through some Jeff Goodman, you probably loved the early-morning games in Rock Hill. Winthrop beat Queens in the first game of the day, and Saint Bonaventure did eventually take down Bradley, even though the Feds shut down the stream midway through, allegedly to cover up Woj being fake-ejected.
In three games in Sioux Falls, Murray State outlasted Omaha, Drake needed a big comeback to topple *checks notes* NAU, and South Dakota State survived Merrimack.
Not to be outdone, the MAC-Sun Belt challenge brought cinema to ESPN+ streams across the country. The MAC went 9-4, and six of the games finished within six points. At one point it seemed like every game was tied.
Particular shoutout to Akron and Bowling Green, who won impressive games and remain undefeated. Keep an eye on those two as the season progresses.
Two HBCU’s go toe-to-toe with the Big Boys for (more than) all 40 minutes…
Neither Maryland Eastern Shore nor Bethune-Cookman have made it to the NCAA Tournament. The biggest program they have ever collectively beaten might be Temple, which UMES beat a couple years ago, or mid-major Central Florida, which B-CU beat seven times before 1995.
All of that nearly changed on opening night. UMES, despite offensive struggles, played tenacious defense to hold stud freshman Mouhamed Sylla and Georgia Tech under 50 points in regulation. They should have won it, if not for a questionable foul call to allow Tech to send it into overtime. In OT, the Hawks ran out of steam and fell by four points.
B-CU’s feat was even more impressive, having stayed in contact with 20th-ranked Auburn in a barnburner all night. Just when it seemed lost, B-CU was fouled on a half-court heave and made all three free throws to force OT, where they too, just ran out of gas.
Tremendous performances from two of the more overlooked outfits in the country, and both will look to make the big dance for the first time.
Brand Spankin’ New Haven
There’s obviously no better way to announce your coming onto the Division-I stage than going on the road to dog-walk in-state power and multiple-time national champion UConn.
That’s not what New Haven did, but it did acquit itself well on the national stage. As a 42.5 point underdog, the scoreboard with two and a half minutes to play read UConn 70, New Haven 55. Not bad. (The game finished 79-55.)
Two games later, New Haven got to host Penn State. Not Penn State-Brandywine, not Penn State-Nowheresville, the Penn State. Three games into the season, they got to host a power conference school, something other teams with a lot more years at the Division-I level still haven’t gotten to do. (They did not fare nearly as well, getting doubled up 87-43.)
Last night, New Haven got on the board, taking down UMass Lowell on the road. Welcome, Chargers!
The Epitomes of Brutality: shouting out the wins over high majors
On an opening night where Mid-Major Madness Twitter was jinxing brutalities-in-progress left and right, New Orleans jumped out to a huge lead on TCU. The Froggies got back into it just when it seemed like 12 different games that night were going the wrong way, but New Orleans got it done. Not only did they claim victory over TCU, UNO also claimed the color purple for themselves too.
There were several close calls, but not a ton else the way of mid-major over high-major wins on the men’s side in the first few days. FAU took down Boston College at home on opening night by erasing a late six-point deficit, but nothing else came until a week later. Last night, Santa Clara went into the Cintas Center and absolutely laid the WOOD on Xavier, opening up a 30-point lead en route to a 19-point win.
Santa Clara is trying to play the role of “that next team behind Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s that tries to sneak into the NCAA Tournament.” The Broncs haven’t been dancing since 1996.
Other teams like San Francisco might be gunning for that role, but it probably won’t be Washington State, which in its season opener lost by two points to Idaho at home, something it’s done just one other time since 1989. Not to be outdone, Idaho’s women team took down WSU in Pullman, also by two points – its first win over WSU since 2003, and first road win over the Cougars since 1998. So these are technically maybe not high-major wins anymore, but still shoutout Vandals! Basketball in the state of Idaho is on the up-and-up—wait, hold on, that might not be true, more on that in a second.
Speaking of the women’s side, there was more success to speak of in terms of brutality. The Fairfield women’s team, for example, avenged its men’s team’s near miss. On Monday night, the men made Philly bandwagon fans nervous by taking a huge lead over Penn State and squandering it at the end. On Wednesday, the women took a huge lead over Philly sports fans’ other favorite bandwagon team, except the women were able to hang on. Remember, this is a team that went a combined 59-7 over the last two years but still needed the tourney crown to make the tournament, so every win is a good one for this squad.
There were more such results. Holy Cross beat Boston College on opening night, then Drexel beat Pitt, and Lehigh beat Cincinnati on Tuesday. We got a trifecta on Sunday, with Stony Brook smashing Rutgers by 17, Princeton knocking off Georgia Tech (honestly not even much of an upset) and Charlotte bouncing back from a near upset of Auburn at home to edge out UCF on the road. Oh, and UNLV beat DePaul, who I guess is a major team, not sure.
There were so many close calls that nearly ended up as banner material for our blog, but alas. We will give as many of them as we can an honorable mention here. For the men: Oakland at Purdue, Fairfield at Penn State, SEMO at Mizzou, Eastern Washington at UCLA (kinda), Eastern Washington at Colorado (for sure), Montana State at Colorado, Hofstra at UCF, North Alabama at Mississippi State, Hawaii at Oregon, Rice at Oregon, Marist at Xavier, Le Moyne at Xavier (something something Pitino nepotism something), Weber State at Utah, Southern Miss at South Carolina, and Southeastern Louisiana at Georgia Tech. And for the women: Stetson at Bama, Auburn at Charlotte, New Haven at Xavier, Purdue Fort Wayne at Xavier, IU Indy at Northwestern, Georgia Southern at Florida State, UC Riverside at Arizona, Tennessee at UT Martin, Lindenwood at Baylor, UNC Greensboro at Auburn, and Central Arkansas at Arkansas.
Non-Division I teams are good for about 3-5 wins per year over Division-I competition on average in recent years. But you wouldn’t expect one of those wins to come over a Mountain West team. The Mountain West is good for multiple bids in the NCAA Tournament just about every year. Last year it got four teams into the Dance and nearly got two of its teams into the second weekend. In 2023, San Diego State was down five points with five minutes to play in the National Championship game. Without looking too deeply into the advanced statistics, you’d have this team about seventh or eighth in the pecking order in all Division-I conferences, and probably just as high in terms of resources and facilities.
But the first Division II over Division I win on the men’s side did come over the Mountain West, and it wasn’t just any of the Mountain West teams, it was perhaps one of the best ones: Boise State. Boise State trailed most of the game against Hawaii Pacific in its own building, and dropped a shocker, 79-78. And if you watched that game, you know that the Sea Warriors let Boise have a shot at that game at the end, one the Broncos probably didn’t deserve.
This is a team with legitimate at-large tourney hopes just about every year, including this one. Even today, BSU’s Kenpom is fourth-highest of all mid-major teams, two behind Saint Mary’s. KenPom doesn’t factor in losses to Division-II teams though, and maybe it should.
Three other Division-II teams won games on the men’s side: Northwood, picked to finish 11th in its conference, took a huge lead early before hanging on to beat in-state foe Western Michigan. Wilmington University, who went 9-20 last year, handled its in-state foe Delaware by nine. And last night, North Greenville beat Gardner-Webb by double digits, 92-81. On the women’s side, West Alabama trailed UAB 27-7 early but came back to score a shocking 62-59 win, and the Delta State Lady Statesmen took out the Sun Belt’s Louisiana Ragin Cajuns, 76-68.
IU Indy, “The System,” and the Game of the Year?
Once a dumpster fire known to many as “ooie pooie” and hosting open tryouts to fill roster spots, IU Indy basketball has turned itself into, well, a possible cure for the male loneliness epidemic. Maybe they’re not a great team that will win a lot of games yet, but they can score a lot of points, thanks to “The System” run by Ben Howlett (not Howland), the head coach. (Read more about their style of play here.)
Any time you have a team running something called The System, be it the 90’s LMU teams or the legend of Grinnell College, you’re going to have a lot of fun watching them. On opening night, they hung 102 points on Ohio State. Then, against another pace pushing team, they lost by four in a crazy game to Long Island.
Would you rather watch a great team or a fun team? If you’re a male struggling with loneliness at the moment, you might want to consider giving the Jaguars a watch. Don’t be like this lonely guy and reject our help.
Uphill climb for the Mountain West
After a few down years for the A-10 fans have been getting the “zero-bid league” treatment for a couple of years now whenever something bad happens for the league’s multi-bid chances. Fans of programs of the proud A-10, which has seemed a tad snakebit for a handful of years, understandably pushed back at the ribbing at first, but have since leaned into it, with some of the more prominent social media supporters tweeting out #ZeroBidLeague themselves. (Even Mid-Major Madness Twitter, which has been largely a non-critiquing unconditional cheerleader of Mid-Major programs, has been in on the fun for some time.)
This year we might have to shift some teasing over to the Mountain West. We gave the buildup earlier in the article. But the disastrous Boise loss is hardly the only blemish for the conference. UNLV, in Josh Pastner’s first game, dropped a shocker at home to UT Martin. Fresno State gave up a lead and fell to USC Upstate. New conference addition Grand Canyon, known for its raucous home court advantage, let the Youngstown State Penguins come in and handle them. Nevada nearly handed a game to a Pacific team that isn’t supposed to be that good.
And so we birth a new hashtag: #NegativeOneBidLeague. (All in good fun, Mountain West, but pick it up!)
An early 4-5 game preview?
On the bright side for the MWC, there is Utah State. In one of the marquee mid-major matchups to start the year, they faced a good VCU team. Despite giving away all of an early 18-point lead, they did pull it out by three points.
(This section was originally titled “an early 8-9 game preview” but I don’t want to give the committee any ideas in terms of seeding mid-majors against each other in the first round. Besides, we all know that Utah State is grabbing a 4-seed with a 32-1 record and VCU a 5-seed at 30-2.)
An early 8-9 game preview?
Not going to get greedy here. But Memphis and San Francisco was another great matchup. San Francisco went into FedEx Forum and got down big, but surged back to make it interesting late. Ultimately, Memphis did just enough to hang on. We expect to see the Tigers in March, but hopefully the Dons can continue to push their way into the field if they continue to play well. (And I know what this section is titled but don’t get any ideas, committee.)
Loyola Chicago is bad, but entertaining and sentimental
Loyola Chicago re-emerged to national prominence on the back of the individual with perhaps the most years of basketball knowledge on Earth: sister Jean. The legend passed away last month at the age of 106.
In the first game since her passing, Loyola hit a wild buzzer beater over Cleveland State, and if you believe in that kind of thing, maybe she brushed the ball in with her angel wings.
Sadly, the team could use one of her patented pep talks on rebounding and offensive execution, because this is not a good team. They dropped a game as a 21.5-point favorite to second-year Division-I program Mercyhurst by eight and never really threatened in the second half. They performed much better against North Texas, but the Mean Green pulled it out on a wild last second jumper to start 3-0:
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We hope you had as much fun watching the first eight days of the season as we did. Keep it here at Mid-Major Madness for more features of your favorite teams.
