Loss to hide from: Once upon a time, Cincinnati basketball was the biggest and baddest program in the country. Now, not so much. The Bearcats opened with three home games in three days -- losing to Belmont (of the Atlantic Sun Conference) by 11, beating Western Carolina (of the Southern Conference) by two and losing to Bowling Green (of the Mid-American Conference) by two. Consequently, Cincinnati is off to a 1-2 start against mid-major competition, and that can't be a good sign for a team that will eventually have to play high-major programs with elite-level prospects.
Player who deserves improper benefits: All of Kevin Durant's Big 12 records are in trouble, and Michael Beasley is the reason. The Kansas State freshman opened his college career Friday with a 32-point, 24-rebound effort against Sacramento State before backing it Sunday with a 30-point, 14-rebound effort against Pittsburgh State. So Beasley is averaging 31 points and 19 rebounds per contest, and do you finally understand why it was so important for so many schools to try to hire Beasley's former AAU coach, Dalonte Hill? Kansas State won the sweepstakes, and through two games it seems like a brilliant move.
Player who should lose his scholarship: Chris Lofton isn't a good opening-game player. How do I know this, you ask? Because I went back to last year's initial Monday Look Back, and he was the person I used for this exact category after he opened with just six points in a win over Middle Tennessee State. This season, not much better. The Tennessee junior opened with only 10 points in a win over Temple while missing all five of his 3-point attempts. The bad news for Arkansas-Monticello's Mike Newell -- besides, you know, that he's coaching Arkansas-Monticello -- is that Lofton went for 30 in his second game last season. So the Boll Weevils could be in trouble come Wednesday night.
Why I'm smarter than you think: Are you surprised by Beasley's numbers? I'm not. For proof, I'll take you back to a blog I posted July 11 that read, "Because of what happened last season, people constantly ask who will be the next Kevin Durant. My instinct is to tell them to relax, that what Durant did couldn't possibly be duplicated. But if you put a gun to my keyboard and made me type the top candidate, I'd probably have to go with Beasley because he's best equipped to post huge numbers fast and has a coach who will not hesitate to let him do it." So yeah, I'm a genius. And don't you dare act like all of you knew this was coming, because if you did you wouldn't have criticized me for making Beasley a preseason All-American and the Big 12 Player of the Year, you haters.
Why I'm dumber than I think: I picked Georgia Tech to finish fifth in the ACC, this despite the Yellow Jackets losing Thaddeus Young and Javaris Crittenton from a team that finished sixth in the league last season. So basically, what I predicted was that Georgia Tech would be better without a pair of top 20 NBA Draft picks. Brilliant, huh? Sometimes I really don't think this stuff through, and it became obvious this weekend when Georgia Tech opened with a loss to UNC-Greensboro before having to come from behind in the second half to beat Tennessee State.
Three things you should know before you go:
1. UCLA opened without Darren Collison, the all-league point guard who was out because of a sprained left knee. The Bruins still managed a 69-48 victory over Portland State, primarily because of Kevin Love's 22-point, 13-rebound effort. As for Collison, he's expected to miss at least two more games.
2. South Florida opened without Kentrell Gransberry, the all-league center who was out because of a one-game suspension for playing in a non-sanctioned summer tournament. The Bulls, however, did not fair as well as UCLA without its star player, losing 73-70 to Cleveland State primarily because they do not have a player on their roster like Love. Or Russell Westbrook. Or Josh Shipp. Or ... you get the point.
3. It wasn't a good weekend for the Missouri Valley Conference. Sure, Northern Iowa tallied three wins, and Creighton got a notable victory over DePaul. But the schools picked second and third in the MVC -- Bradley and Missouri State -- each took tough road losses. Bradley fell at Illinois-Chicago, a team picked eighth in the Horizon. Missouri State fell at Toledo, a team picked second in the MAC's West Division.
On tap: Monday, first-year coach Marvin Menzies runs the risk of dropping to 0-2 when his New Mexico State Aggies play at Duke. Tuesday, DeAndre Jordan and Texas A&M get a dangerous test when sometimes-giant-killer Oral Roberts visit College Station. Wednesday, Davidson has a chance to make national headlines when it takes on North Carolina in Charlotte. Thursday, the Derrick Rose Show heads to New York, where Memphis will meet Blake Griffin and Oklahoma at Madison Square Garden.
Final thoughts: O.J. Mayo missed 15 of 27 shots and committed eight turnovers Saturday in Southern California's loss to Mercer. That's awful. But Mayo still had 32 points, which should've at least made him the nation's leading scorer, right?
Wrong.
In fact, it didn't even make him the nation's leading scorer named Mayo.
That honor goes to Illinois-Chicago's Josh Mayo, who got 34 points in the win over Bradley. Even better, he did it while taking 10 fewer shots and committing six fewer turnovers, meaning Josh Mayo had a better opening weekend than O.J. Mayo, strange as that sounds.
