From ESPN

[Duke Blue Blood]

Yikes!



SMU: The Mustangs opened 0-2 -- against the SWAC! Alabama State and Southern walked into Moody and dispatched the Mustangs by double figures in both games.



Cincinnati: The Bearcats hosted a tourney and left 1-2 with losses to Belmont and Bowling Green.



Northern Illinois: Clearly, Ricardo Patton is in for a major rebuilding job, opening up 0-3 and losing by the following scores at a tourney at Northern Iowa: 75-45 to UNI, 102-87 to UMass and 88-78 to Cal Poly.



Georgia Tech: Nice to see the Yellow Jackets go on the road to a low-major by beating Tennessee State by 14 on Sunday. But that was after the shocker Tech took at home by Greensboro, losing by nine.



USC: Can you say wake-up call? O.J. Mayo scored 32 points in 40 minutes and that's a great line (although he did have to take 27 shots and missed 15 and did have eight turnovers), and the Trojans were without three of their most talented players in Daniel Hackett (jaw), Devon Jefferson (knee) and Marcus Simmons (ankle). Still, USC shouldn't lose at home to Mercer in its home opener, right?



Long Beach State: OK, clearly BYU is better than projected, right? Well, the 40-point pasting on the 49ers in their home opener may be better explained when knowing that Dan Monson took over a team that lost 10 players from the Big West champs.



Kentucky: Gardner-Webb. And, add in 14 days to sit and stew about the loss for Billy Clyde before Liberty comes to town. Can't imagine those practices are too much fun.



Auburn: There was a lot of preseason chatter about the Tigers being much improved. Well, they lost by 15 at Tulane.

[The XtC]

I was surprised that they didnt include Tulsa's opening loss to Hampton, but then last night Hampton played Maryland right down to the wire, so perhaps they are one of this years sleepers.

Tulane appears much improved, they upset Auburn, and followed that with a win over Charleston Southern last night. Most of the pre-season magazines and even the coaches poll had Tulane finishing in the C-USA cellar.

Auburn's next game is against our friends from Southern, on Friday. That should be an interesting score.