The first week of college basketball is underway and the NCAA has given us some great matchups to look forward to on the men’s side such as No. 7 ranked Texas vs. Gardner-Webb and No. 1 ranked Florida vs. Jacksonville.
Now, obviously, this is nothing new. There are a plethora of mismatches like these at the beginning of every college basketball season, and this is because Power Five conference schools want to warm up and get some wins before having to take on the top-level teams.
But just how lopsided can these early-season matchups really get? The answer is: very.
Many of these early-season matchups feature Power Five schools like Duke and Kansas facing off against schools whose home arenas are the size of a high school gym.
Last year, No. 4 ranked UConn took on UMass Lowell at home in their second game of the season. While UConn’s on-campus arena holds over 10,000 people, UMass Lowell’s home gym has a capacity of just 957. UConn handily defeated UMass Lowell 110-47.
Surely 63 points was the largest margin of victory in any game last season, right? Unfortunately, no.
In a matchup between No. 13 ranked Gonzaga and Southern Utah, Gonzaga walked out of their home arena with a 122-50 victory, defeating Southern Utah by an astounding 72 points.
Believe it or not, many of these smaller schools actually want to play top-tier powerhouses. High-major programs pay smaller schools to travel to the high-major home arena and play them.
In theory, this sounds like a great trade-off; the smaller schools get funding, and the high majors get in the win column, while giving their players a chance to warm up playing against low-level competition. However, going into a game knowing you’re going to lose can take a psychological toll on players, especially when you know that you’re going to lose by a lot.
Nov. 8, 2019, most definitely took a mental toll on every single player for Mississippi Valley State when they faced Utah in their second game of the season. Utah put up 70 points in the first half but decided that was not enough, as they went on to score 73 in the second half and win the game by a whopping 95 points, 143-49.
If we look at No. 3 ranked Illinois this season, we can see that they have a total of seven “cupcake” games, or matchups against low-major programs that they are heavily favored to win in. Thus, seven out of Illinois’ first 13 games are essentially automatic wins for the Fighting Illini.
However, sometimes these “cupcake” games don’t turn out to be automatic wins for the heavily favored team.
In 2019, No.1 ranked Duke invited Stephen F. Austin State University to their home arena expecting to dominate the Lumberjacks, as the Blue Devils were favored to win by 27.5 points over Stephen F. Austin going into the matchup. Regardless of the spread, the Lumberjacks would take the Blue Devils to overtime where they would make a game-winning fast break layup at the buzzer to defeat Duke.
What makes this loss even more embarrassing for Duke is that they paid Stephen F. Austin $85,000 to come and play them at their home arena, just to lose.
Every year, regardless of the final score, it is cool to see small schools from conferences like the Ivy League and Patriot League play against the top teams in the country. I mean, when else are you going to have a chance to watch the No. 3 ranked team in the country, Illinois, take on the University of Pennsylvania, the number one business school in the country?