College basketball has started conference play this past week, and it’s not really a surprise that there were a lot of ranked teams losing. However, it was a slight surprise to me that so many top 10 teams lost this first week. Only three top 10 teams - #8 Gonzaga, #5 Florida and #1 Duke - survived the week without a loss. Two of those - Florida and Duke - remain unbeaten. 

The jury is still out for me on Florida, mainly because I haven’t seen them play. They haven’t really played much of a schedule yet, with perhaps their best win being over Wake Forest. But people seem to like them, and it appears that if they’re half of what people think, they should run away with the SEC. They were actually unranked to start the season, with Kentucky, who was overrated as usual, and Alabama, who fell off the map long ago, the only ranked SEC teams. Speaking of Kentucky, they were blown away yesterday by an unranked Kansas team. They look to be getting worse. I’d say they’ll make their exit from the top 25 this week. Arkanas had some expectations this year, but I’m not sure they’ll make a great deal of noise, either. I say Florida runs away with the SEC.

Duke won a big one tonight, with the Duke seniors getting their first win in Winston-Salem over Wake Forest after having lost three in a row there. Despite foul trouble inside - with Josh McRoberts and Shelden Williams in foul trouble practically the whole game - Duke managed to win easily by 18 points. Redick was his usual self, scoring 32 on the Deacons. With the big men in foul trouble, Duke did it from long range, hitting 14 three’s in the game (compared to Wake’s 2 for 13). I expected this to be a much more difficult game - especially after Duke fell into early foul trouble - so it was great to see them still manage a win. Duke did slow the game late in the first half, and a number of times in the second to try to shorten the game, and it seemed to work.

A turning point seemed to be Trent Strickland’s missed dunk early in the 2nd. Duke’s lead would’ve been cut to three, but instead they rebounded the miss and Redick hit a 3, pushing the lead back to eight points. Wake didn’t get it into Eric Williams as much as they needed to, especially with Williams and McRoberts in foul troulbe. Either they didn’t look for him or Duke’s defense didn’t let them. Justin Gray, outside of a few shots late in the first half, didn’t seem to have his typical game, either. We also saw the return of DeMarcus Nelson (who was one of several guarding Gray.) Duke will be even better after he gets a few more games under his belt. But the ACC will remain tough regardless.

As for the rest of the top 10, here’s what happened:

#2 Connecticut was blown out by Marquette. (They also had a one-point home win vs unranked LSU on Saturday, in which LSU missed a shot as time expired that would have given the Huskies their 2nd loss in a week).

#3 Villanova lost a lead and the game to West Virginia

#4 Memphis lost to Texas (not a bad loss, considering Texas was #2 a few weeks ago)

#6 Illinois lost at Iowa (Illinois has looked pretty good so far - I thought they lost a lot from last year, but looks like they’re doing okay)

#7 Michigan State lost twice - although both on the road at Illinois and at Wisconsin

#9 Louisville lost to Villanova (also not a bad loss since Villanova was #3, but I question if Louisville belongs in the top 10 to begin with - after all, they lost to Kentucky).

And #10 Washington lost at home to Washington State, which I have to think is a bad loss (even though I know little about the Pac 10 - and care even less).

So, the conference season starts and immediately things are shaken up quite a bit. I expect this will happen as often as it doesn’t, though. Just another week in college basketball.

How can you not love this time of year??

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As a Duke fan, I’m also a huge J.J. Redick fan. Here’s a good article about him from SI.