Winning On The Road Gets Taken For Granted ... Again

It’s an annual right of passage in the college hoops season. It always occurs in the early days of January, when guarantee games are done and conference play kicks into high gear.

↵What am I talking about? I’m talking about that period where the top teams go on the road and lose. The cupcake portion of their season over, they find that playing in a hostile environment is a completely different animal than your classic late-December guarantee game against Anonymous State.

↵As Burnt Orange Nation points out, consider all the top teams that lost road games just this weekend.

↵↵Thinking winning on the road in college basketball is easy? Think again. Take a look at just this weekend’s results -

↵No. 1 Kansas lost at unranked No. 15 Tennessee, 76-68.
No. 4 Purdue lost at No. 20 Wisconsin, 73-66.
No. 5 Duke lost at No. 17 Georgia Tech, 71-67.
No. 8 West Virginia lost at unranked Notre Dame, 70-68.
No. 10 Kansas State lost at unranked Missouri, 74-68.
No. 19 Florida State is currently losing (and lost) at unranked Maryland.
No. 22 Washington is currently losing (and lost) at unraked Arizona.

↵↵If you extend the time period to this week, then you can include No. 9 North Carolina losing at College of Charleston, No. 12 Georgetown losing at Marquette, No. 13 Connecticut losing at Georgetown, No. 14 New Mexico losing at San Diego State, No. 17 Georgia Tech losing at Georgia and No. 22 Washington losing at both Arizona and Arizona State. Overall, top 25 teams went just 8-13 on the road this week. Yikes.

↵Winning on the road. It ain’t easy. We should appreciate the teams that do get it done, particularly right now.