Last week, we looked at a handful of teams who have secured early season, resume boosting wins in the non-conference portions of their schedules. These are the kinds of wins that a program banks on come Selection Sunday.
The opposite is true as well, with other programs missing out on prime opportunities to pick up big wins or, in the unlucky case of a few, getting upset and having a early blemish on their record. Here are three teams, in particular, who are off to a rough start.
UCLA: How is Steve Alford’s program still so poor at starting their season off strong? UCLA does not lose to Monmouth at home; it isn’t supposed to happen. Yet, here we are. Tonight’s match up against UNLV at the Maui Invitational would certainly get things back on track a bit, but this is a loss that will be remembered later on in the year
Georgetown: Losing to Maryland and Duke, with neither game being at home, is nothing to scoff at, especially when considering how well the Hoyas competed in both of those games. But it’s the opening loss to Radford that makes those two near wins so painful. Their win over Wisconsin does help ease the pain, though.
Stanford: This group was always going to be dancing a very tight line when it came to their at-large hopes, but getting overwhelmed by SMU at home, then gashed at Saint Mary’s doesn’t help their non-conference resume. Those are two big missed opportunities, but they still have Villanova this week and Texas later on before Pac-12. They’ll likely need both of those at this point, but at least a win over ‘Nova.
