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Winners and losers from the Thanksgiving week tournaments

Jeff Eisenberg
·Senior writer
Winners and losers from the Thanksgiving week tournaments

From the Maui Invitational, to the Battle 4 Atlantis, to the Wooden Legacy, Thanksgiving week featured a handful of marquee tournaments. Here's a look at which teams' stock rose and fell:

SHINED IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

1. SYRACUSE In a span of three days, Syracuse sent an emphatic message that it could be a factor in the ACC this season. The Orange dispatched of Charlotte, UConn and Texas A&M at the Battle 4 Atlantis to win the strongest tournament of them all. While seniors Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney are Syracuse's top players, freshmen Malachi Richardson and Tyler Lydon have been pleasant surprises. The Orange have yet to develop a bench and they're turning the ball over too often, but they're also controlling the offensive glass and shooting a blistering 41.1 percent from 3-point range as a team.

2. MONMOUTH: Don't let all the attention Monmouth's fun bench celebrations have received detract from what the Hawks have accomplished on the floor. Monmouth opened the season with an overtime victory at UCLA. Then the Hawks took third at the Advocare Invitational in Orlando, sandwiching upsets of Notre Dame and USC around a three-point loss to Dayton. Can these victories propel Monmouth into contention for an at-large bid in March? It's a long shot. But the performance of guards Justin Robinson and Micah Seaborn suggests the Hawks are clearly a contender in the MAAC this season.

3. WEST VIRGINIA: The Mountaineers were the rare visitors to Las Vegas who left richer than they came. They returned home with the Las Vegas Invitational trophy and a case for a Top 25 ranking after dispatching of Richmond and San Diego State with relative ease. What makes this West Virginia team dangerous is its swarming full-court pressure defense. The Mountaineers are second in the nation in steals per game and they so far have been able to extend their defense to pressure the ball and take away 3-pointers without surrendering easy buckets at the rim. That has helped make up for an offense that again is turnover-prone and lacks outside shooting.

4. XAVIER: The trip to Orlando could not have gone much better for the Musketeers. Not only did they win the Advocare Invitational, they stomped longtime rival Dayton 90-61 in the title game. The emergence of freshman guard Edmond Sumner and sophomore guard J.P. Macura has given Xavier six players averaging at least 9.4 points per game so far this season. The Musketeers are also simply physically imposing their will on teams by controlling the glass at both ends and consistently getting to the foul line. They're top 25 nationally in both offensive rebounding and defensive rebounding percentage. In short, so far this looks like the top challenger to Villanova in the Big East.

5. KANSAS: The Wayne Selden who tantalized Kansas with his assertiveness and efficiency last summer resurfaced in Maui. He torched Vanderbilt for 25 points on only 11 shots in the Maui Invitational title game,  leading the Jayhawks to a 70-63 victory. Selden's performance capped a brilliant three days in Maui in which he showcased a lethal 3-point stroke and the ability to attack the rim. He averaged 19.3 points per game, sank 12 of 17 attempts from behind the arc and got to the foul line 12 times, exactly the sort of numbers Kansas coach Bill Self has been waiting for him to put up with regularity for the past two years.

Others whose stock rose: Michigan State, Vanderbilt, Providence, Marquette, Weber State, Iowa State, Villanova, UTEP, Cincinnati   

SHRANK IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

1. WICHITA STATE: No team did more damage to its season last week than the injury-plagued Shockers. They lost to USC, Alabama and Iowa in Orlando without star point guard Fred VanVleet to fall to 2-4 this season. Teams from stronger conferences can overcome a poor start by stacking quality wins during league play, but Wichita State doesn't have that luxury. The Shockers have to get most of their marquee victories now because the Valley seldom produces more than one or two RPI top 50 teams. Wichita State has three chances left for quality non-league wins — Utah, UNLV and Seton Hall. Unless the Shockers get a couple of those, they may have to rely on winning Arch Madness to make the NCAA tournament.

2. CAL: With an undefeated record, a top 20 ranking and its most talented starting five in more than two decades, Cal entered the Las Vegas Invitational with ample momentum. Then back-to-back brutal losses to San Diego State and Richmond sent that crashing to a halt. Defense was the Bears' primary undoing in both losses. The typically cold-shooting Aztecs lit up Cal for 44 second-half points in a comeback win. The Spiders were scoring an astonishing 1.42 points per possession before the Bears finally switched to a 2-3 zone. Freshman Ivan Rabb is a capable rim protector, but the rest of the Bears are getting beat too often off the dribble and making too many mental mistakes.

3. LSU: There was pressure on LSU to perform well at the Legends Classic last week since it's the only time the Tigers will see major-conference competition until January. Alas, LSU did not pass that early test, falling to both Marquette and NC State to leave Brooklyn 0-2. Ben Simmons displayed his typical level of effortless all-around brilliance against the Golden Eagles, but he was limited to just one bucket against the Wolfpack in a game the Tigers shot just 36.4 percent. Some of the issues LSU had in that game are ones that have plagued the Tigers all month. They settle for too many contested jumpers and struggle on both the offensive and defensive glass.

4. INDIANA: Two upset losses. Frequent defensive lapses. A player's mom calling out coach Tom Crean. What could go wrong did go wrong for Indiana during a nightmare three days at the Maui Invitational. The Hoosiers sandwiched disappointing losses to Wake Forest and UNLV around an equally disappointing win over a rebuilding St. John's team. The common thread in all three games was that Indiana was neither as formidable as they can be offensively nor as improved as they hoped to be defensively. The Hoosiers turned the ball over way too frequently, shot poorly from the foul line and struggled to control dribble penetration off straight-line drives or via the ball screen.

5. ARKANSAS: A tumultuous offseason limited expectations for Arkansas, but it became clear how much the Razorbacks may struggle from their dismal performance at the Preseason NIT. They dropped a pair of games against a Georgia Tech team expected to finish near the bottom of the ACC and a Stanford team with suspect guard play. Especially damning for Arkansas was the Stanford loss because the Razorbacks blew a game they had won. They led by 19 just over eight minutes into the game and by 17 with nine minutes left but surrendered a 26-6 game-ending run to fall 69-66.

Others whose stock fell: Boston College, Missouri, Tennessee, UAB, Notre Dame, Drexel, Texas, Illinois State, Rutgers

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!