College basketball Week 1 overreactions: Believe the UCLA hype?
The long march to March is officially underway. The 2026-27 men’s college basketball season began last week with seven full days' worth of games. While many of the contests were laughably one-sided affairs between major-conference opponents and overmatched foes from smaller leagues, there were some early and informative glimpses about the 365 Division I teams and what they might be able to accomplish this season. There were several matchups between teams ranked in the top 25 of the preseason USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, with No. 1 Florida beating No. 17 Miami , No. 5 UConn rolling past No. 20 Michigan in a rematch of last year’s national title game and No. 9 Virginia drubbing No. 13 Arkansas. There were upsets, too, like Valparaiso going on the road to knock off No. 24 Purdue in double overtime and East Texas A&M stunning Oklahoma . REQUIRED READING: UCLA stunned Arizona. What the Bruins showed should scare everyone Between the excitement over the start of the season, the small sample size of games and the desire to make sense of what we’ve seen, there’s a tendency to make big, sweeping proclamations about what’s unfolded thus far. Oftentimes, they’re overreactions — the kinds
