Blue Devils and Huskies Fall to Unranked Foes

This just shows you how much the preseason rankings mean. Sports Illustrated ranked the Gonzaga Bulldogs third and they lost their first game of the season. And now this week the top four ranked teams in the nation -- the UConn Huskies, Duke Blue Devils, Arizona Wildcats, and Michigan St. Spartans -- were all defeated this week. The Huskies and Blue Devils were also both beaten by unranked opponents in their preseason tournaments.

In the Preseason NIT semifinals on Wednesday night, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets stunned UConn. With the win, Georgia Tech bumped the Huskies from the number one spot in the polls. Some UConn fans may argue that Emeka Okafor was plagued by a bad back, but the Huskies were still blown out of the water by a score of 77-61.

UConn went on to embarrass the Utah Utes 76-44 in the consolation game. The Huskies were out to prove that despite the fact that they lost the number one ranking, they are still one of the strongest teams in the nation.

Georgia Tech went on to beat the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the final on Friday night, 85-65. The Yellow Jackets were in a league above Bobby Knight's team as Georgia Tech's Jarret Jack filled the box score along the line, leading his team with 17 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists. Despite 25 points from All-American candidate Andre Emmit, the Red Raiders fell behind early and were not able to climb out of the hole they had dug themselves.

The Maui Invitational didn't feature as many real national contenders as the NIT tournament, but it still served as a nice tropical setting for coaches to get a sense of their teams' makeups and chemistry.

The Dayton Flyers beat the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors on Wednesday night to capture the Maui Invitational championship, 82-72. The Flyers are one of the mid-major darlings of college basketball, and at 4-0 they are looking to enter the top 25 and make a splash come March once again.

Anchorage's Great Alaska Shootout turned out as well as anyone could have expected. Looking at the brackets, many envisioned a Duke/Purdue Boilermaker final, and that's exactly what happened. Purdue coach Gene Keady anticipated this match-up when he scheduled his team for the tournament. Ultimately, it was his squad that proved to be the more experienced team at this point in the season, winning 78-68.

Despite not being in the top 25 at the beginning of the season, the Boilermakers are sure to enter the polls this week. This was the first game this season Duke led at halftime and ended up losing after going cold in the second half.

Other big games this week included a nail-bitter between the Arizona Wildcats and the Florida Gators, as well as a four-five matchup between the Michigan St. Spartans and the Kansas Jayhawks.

The Wildcat/Gator top ten bout featured two of the premier offensive teams in the nation and ended with Florida on top, 78-77. Gator forward Matt Walsh finished with 27 points in leading his team to the victory. In Tuesday night's game between the Jayhawks and Spartans, Kansas prevailed by a 81-74 margin, with forward Wayne Simien exploding for 28 points and eight rebounds.

Next week will heat up even more with the ACC/Big 10 Challenge, which pits members of the two power conferences against each other. These games will definitely distinguish the contenders from the early season pretenders.