In the weeks leading up to the 2023-24 men's college basketball season -- and then especially once the ball was finally tipped last Monday -- there was a steady stream of complaints about the early-season schedule, with people demanding more marquee matchups. While there is perhaps some merit to those arguments (who doesn't want to see more great games?), here's a look at what we saw in the first few days of this new campaign:
A top-five team (Michigan State) loses at home to the Sun Belt favorite (James Madison) in overtime
A matchup between two top-12 teams (Duke and Arizona), a game that went down to the final seconds
A battle between a top-25 team (Baylor) and a borderline top-25 team (Auburn) that went down to the final minute
The best NBA prospect in college basketball (USC's Isaiah Collier) taking on an Elite Eight team (Kansas State) from last season in Las Vegas
Fifteen power conference teams suffering losses to teams from outside the power conferences
Were there top-10 games every single night?