You’re a good major-conference team, cruising through your non-conference schedule, when it happens.  You catch the wrong low-major team at precisely the wrong time.  You don’t shoot well.  Their lineup has matchups that you aren’t prepared for.  Frustration, then panic, then despair - and finally, a loss.  It’s the Early-Season Stinkbomb.

Wednesday night, ninth-ranked Pittsburgh ran into a buzz saw in Long Beach State of the Big West Conference.  They were the defending regular-season champions of the Big West, and returned most of their major contributors from last year.  The 49ers are a confident, veteran, championship team, and it showed.  Jamie Dixon may or may not have warned his players what the they were up against, but it didn’t matter.  His team was big, bad Pittsburgh, playing in front of a subdued home crowd in a building where they hardly ever lose.  They were playing a team from a small conference with a long name, and they probably thought they had the game won just by showing up.  Obviously, they did not.

The Early-Season Stinkbomb comes out of nowhere. Its the type of loss that jumps right off your NCAA selection sheet and makes you audibly say “Wait - they lost to who?!”  

Luckily for some teams, the Stinkbomb will not define their season.  UCLA, even with the bad home loss to Loyola Marymount has plenty of opportunity to turn their season around.  In 2009 Florida (a home loss to South Alabama) and Maryland (a home bed pooping against Morgan State) survived their Stinkbombs and made it off the bubble and into the NCAA Tournament.