Seven ranked teams were in action Wednesday with the average spread in those games landing at 27.3 points. That should serve as your annual reminder that too much of college basketball’s schedule features games between teams that should never be on the court together.
Take UConn vs. Le Moyne, for instance.
That was more or less the equivalent of the Boston Celtics against the South Bay Lakers (with or without Bronny James). UConn was a 37.5-point favorite in that 40-minute game Wednesday, which is like being a 45-point favorite in a 48-minute NBA game. For context, understand that the biggest spread in the history of the NBA is 21.5 points; most spreads in that league are single digits. And this really is my biggest argument in favor of shrinking Division I — so that great programs will cease playing five or six or even seven total mismatches each year, representing somewhere between 16% and 23% of their regular-season.
Just so there’s no confusion, this should not be interpreted as a criticism of UConn-Le Moyne specifically. I used that matchup only because it was the Wednesday game with the biggest spread, and because the Huskies predictably cruised to a 90-49 victory. But, to be clear, this is a college basketball problem, not a UConn problem, and it’s a problem that should have some season-ticket holders questioning why they’re paying full price for a package of games when at least 20% of them are total mismatches on paper.
Anyway …
Everything about Thursday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings remains unchanged from Wednesday because every ranked team that played Wednesday won easily. If you’re wondering, no ranked teams are playing Thursday. So the Top 25 And 1 will remain unchanged until at least Saturday — with Alabama-Purdue, Marquette-Maryland, Arizona-Wisconsin and Ohio State-Texas A&M among the games on Friday that could shake things up.
