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Men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball – there’s no shortage of college ball, every night.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help you figure out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in college basketball.
Iowa no longer undefeated in Big Ten
Sometimes it’s easy to forget, with the ACL injury to JuJu Watkins and the Trojans falling out of the poll after struggling in Big Ten play, that USC is still capable of being a really good basketball team. It’s 20th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, despite all of this, though, and after upsetting No. 8 Iowa on Thursday, which handed the Hawkeyes their first Big Ten loss of the season and dropped them into a tie for second with Michigan.
USC rode its starters hard, with four of them playing between 33 and 39 minutes, but it’s difficult to argue with the results. Senior guard Kara Dunn scored a game-high 25 points on 8-for-14 shooting and secured the double-double by pulling down 12 rebounds. Dunn also had 5 assists and a steal and block each in her 39 minutes. Freshman guard Jazzy Davidson scored 21 with 4 rebounds, a game-high 8 assists — tied with Iowa’s sophomore guard Chazadi Wright — 2 steals and a block. Senior guard Londyn Jones added 17 points, and while the bench mostly provided rest and defense, sophomore guard Kennedy Smith scored another 12 points for the starters.
Iowa could not catch up to USC thanks in large part to the Trojans’ high conversion rate for turnovers into points: the Hawkeyes lost the ball just 13 times, but USC turned those into 19 points. Iowa had more assists and rebounds, but it just let them keep the game as close as it was — those turnovers kept the momentum from ever coalescing into something, as relatively infrequent as they might have been.
The loss leaves UCLA in sole possession of first place in the Big Ten, and as its lone undefeated team. However, the No. 2 Bruins and Hawkeyes face off on Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, live on FOX and the FOX Sports app, so Iowa has a chance to get right back into first place with a W.
Tennessee upset by Mississippi State
No. 15 Tennessee lost to unranked Mississippi State on Thursday, and it’s a significant upset, yes, but don’t underestimate the Bulldogs too much. NET has them 33rd, and its greatest weakness might be that it’s stuck in a loaded SEC conference that put a record 10 teams in the poll this week.
Mississippi State is a rebounding juggernaut — it ranks 8th among all Division I women’s teams in total rebounds with 44.2 per game — and the Bulldogs showed as much against Tennessee by pulling down 50 of them. Freshman forward Madison Francis, who leads the SEC in blocks and averaged 7.5 rebounds per night, had a 12-point, 10-rebound double-double for Mississippi State against the Lady Vols. Junior forward Favour Nwaedozi did even better, with 11 points and 14 rebounds. Senior forward Kharyssa Richardson had a game-high 21 points with 4 rebounds of her own, which also happened to be the fewest any of the starters grabbed. The bench didn’t play much — just 36 combined minutes — but the four players who did come on in reserve added another 6 rebounds and 12 points.
The Bulldogs had 38 defensive rebounds — more than Tennessee had total rebounds — and this more than anything held the Lady Vols back. While Tennessee actually mostly kept up in the paint (32-to-30), and scored more on forced turnovers (20-to-16), it shot much worse (32% to 48%), and had fewer opportunities for second-chance points because Mississippi State dominated the defensive boards. Besides junior guard Talaysia Cooper, Tennessee’s starters were basically shut down offensively, and while Cooper scored 19 points she still had to work hard for them on just 9-for-24 shooting.
Despite the Bulldogs being outplayed in various facets of the game, Tennessee missed way more often and lost possession too many times when that happened. The result? The Lady Vols are no longer undefeated in SEC play, and with South Carolina defeating Auburn to move to 7-1, are now tied for second in the conference with Vanderbilt at 6-1. A tough result right before the annual rivalry game with No. 1, undefeated UConn on Sunday, Feb. 1, which will air live at 12 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app.
[College Basketball Games of the Week: Historic Women’s Clash, Huge Rivalries]
Mississippi State’s W — its first ranked street win since 2020 — makes it that rather more possible that it received’t must play within the first spherical of the SEC match that the bottom-four groups are pressured into, and places them a sport again of Kentucky and Georgia and the center portion of the SEC standings.
Illinois strikes into 4-way Massive Ten tie
The Massive Ten featured 5 groups within the ballot this week, which is nothing astounding by itself. Think about, although, that every one 5 of these groups have been ranked inside the high 12 and 4 of these within the high 10, and also you get a way of what the highest of the Massive Ten’s personal standings appear like. These 4 groups? No. 9 Illinois, No.7 Michigan State, No. 5 Nebraska and No. 3 Michigan. And, after Illinois defeated Washington 75-66 on Thursday, all 4 of these groups at the moment are 9-1 in Massive Ten play, in a four-way tie first within the convention.
Freshman guard Keaton Wagler didn’t explode for a career-high in factors this time round, however he did rating 22 to guide all of the scorers on this sport, which paired properly with fellow freshman David Mirkovic’s 19 factors. Whereas neither Illinois nor Washington shot notably properly — 43% and 45%, respectively — the Preventing Illini made up for high quality with amount by sinking 11 3-pointers, almost doubling up on the Huskies’ half-dozen. Practically all the pieces else was fought pretty down the center, however these extra 3s helped maintain off Washington’s 40-point second-half surge that adopted a reasonably pedestrian first.
To make the aforementioned four-way tie even messier, Nebraska takes on Illinois Sunday at 4 p.m. ET reside on FS1, in a rematch of the Dec. 13 sport that gave the Preventing Illini their solely Massive Ten lack of the season, whereas Michigan and Michigan State sq. off on Friday at 8 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX sports activities app. We’ll have some Massive Ten readability after the weekend, kind of!
Quinnipiac bests Fairfield in uncommon conflict
There had not been a sport like Quinnipiac vs. Fairfield in your complete Division I girls’s faculty basketball season till final night time. It was the primary occasion of two groups that have been at the very least 10-0 in convention play going through off towards one another — each groups have been 11-0 — and even higher, the end result was an upset should you go by the NET rankings. Regardless of Fairfield virtually being a top-50 group and top-90, it was the Bobcats besting the Stags, 72-58, and on the street.
The important thing to the win was shutting down Fairfield’s 3-point sport: the Stags rank first in all of D-I girls’s ball in made 3-pointers per sport by a full 3, 12.1 to Richmond’s 11.1, and are taking pictures 38.2% on the season, sixth-best in D-I. Quinnipiac performed a bodily protection that saved Fairfield from getting beauty from deep, although, and the end result was twofold: the Stags went simply 5-for-22 from past the arc, and its pair of scoring juniors, guard Kaety L’Amoreaux and ahead Meghan Anderson, have been held to a mixed 18 factors and 2-for-11 taking pictures from 3. The pair has averaged a mixed 35.7 factors and 5.5 made 3s per sport this season.
Quinnipiac’s offense wasn’t all that excellent — its 72 factors have been buoyed closely by 19-for-22 taking pictures from the road — however the tone set by its protection made for a W, anyway. And that it performed as bodily because it did whereas limiting fouls was additionally key: Fairfield went to the road simply 9 instances, so making up for the shortage of a deep ball turned that rather more tough for them.
The 2 will face off once more on Valentine’s Day, and there may be extra at stake right here than simply convention standings. The MAAC is prone to solely have an computerized bid for March Insanity, so regardless of Fairfield’s NET rating it might find yourself shut out of the tourney if it may well’t clear up Quinnipiac’s protection the following trip… and a doable third time within the convention tourney, if vital.
A (vital) 35-point sport
Northern Colorado’s Quinn Denker had a hell of a Thursday. The senior guard scored a career-best 35 factors and added 7 rebounds, 10 assists and a couple of blocks to that whole. He led Division I basketball in each factors and assists, and posted the best GameScore of the day in each males’s and girls’s ball due to that plus the general close to triple-double efficiency.
And the Bears wanted each little bit of that with a view to win, too. Regardless of Denker erupting in each aspect of the sport and Northern Colorado holding Idaho to only 38% taking pictures, the Vandals nonetheless made it a detailed one, 91-83, because of sinking 11 3s and a 24-for-28 efficiency from the road. The Bears had 23 of their very own free throws, however with Idaho hitting all these triples, even taking pictures 53% with a bunch of free throws wasn’t sufficient to utterly put the Vandals away till time expired.
TCU survives Kansas
No. 12 TCU is in a little bit of a bizarre spot of late. It was a top-10 group within the ballot for six weeks in a row, then fell to No. 13, made its method again into the back-end of the highest 10 for 2 weeks, and is now No. 12. It leads the Massive 12 with an 8-1 report, so it’s not due to losses, however the Horned Frogs have been successful a bunch of shut video games. This month alone has featured an time beyond regulation loss to Utah, a 69-61 win over Oklahoma State, a 51-50 ranked win towards now-ranked West Virginia, a 71-69 non-conference ranked loss towards Ohio State, and now a 79-77 win towards unranked Kansas. And that one almost went the opposite path, too, as Kansas scored the primary 11 factors on the fourth quarter whereas TCU starters Marta Suarez and Clara Silva each fouled out with over 5 minutes left, simply over 30 seconds aside, then star fifth-year guard Olivia Miles additionally fouled out with 13 left on the clock. And on her birthday, no much less!
Regardless of the shortage of starters left within the lineup by the ultimate performs of the sport, TCU held on for its Thirty eighth-straight residence win, the longest lively streak in Division I. Kansas would hit a 25-foot 3-pointer with one second left on the clock to convey the rating to 79-77, after which couldn’t capitalize on a turnover by senior guard Veronica Sheffey that occurred with a single tick nonetheless left in regulation.
Nonetheless, with the Massive 12 having zero top-10 illustration, and TCU simply getting by towards fairly a couple of of those groups within the final month regardless of its dimension and glorious protection — TCU ranks eleventh within the nation in Defensive Ranking — and the very fact it’s presupposed to be the large canine within the convention, it’s honest to marvel how the Horned Frogs will maintain up towards the actual juggernauts of the SEC and Massive Ten when it will get to be that point of yr. There’s nonetheless extra convention season left for that to all be sorted out, although.
10-straight double-doubles
Merrimack made 22 turnovers in a 58-51 loss the final time it confronted off towards Iona a few weeks in the past, but the Warriors nonetheless might have received the sport if the deep ball had been falling for them — as a substitute, Merrimack shot 3-for-15 from past the arc and couldn’t make up for all of the turnovers due to it. On Thursday, the 2 matched up once more, however this time was totally different in each method: Merrimack got here out firing from 3, and ended up hitting 11 whereas taking pictures 41% of them, and did so whereas turning the ball over simply 8 instances. The end result? An 87-63 win, and an 8-3 fourth-place report in MAAC play, simply earlier than the Warriors face off towards conference-best Quinnipiac and third-place Sacred Coronary heart within the subsequent week.
Whereas the efficiency of senior ahead and Northeastern switch Oralye Keifer stands out — she scored 22 factors whereas taking pictures 6-for-9 from 3 with 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 blocks to increase her conference-leading common to 2.6 per sport — Madison Roman additionally deserves a highlight right here for attaining a big streak courtesy a 12-point, 16-rebound efficiency that additionally included 6 assists and a steal.
Roman is averaging 15.1 factors and 14.6 rebounds per sport during the last 10 video games, and isn’t simply averaging a double-double over that stretch however has additionally logged one in each a kind of video games. Ten double-doubles, in a row! That’s not all that the junior ahead has managed, both, as she’s additionally averaged 3.4 assists per sport on this stretch, and leads the MAAC in rebounds per sport for the season, at 11.1, which additionally places her eighth in all of Division I girls’s basketball.
10 blocks? 10 blocks
What would you think about “so much” of blocks? Appears protected to say that 10 qualifies, being a double-digit variety of them and all. That’s what number of senior heart and Maine switch Milos Nenadic had for Lindenwood towards Southern Indiana on Thursday. That’s one hell of a double-double, too, as Nenadic scored 18 factors on 8-for-19 taking pictures and grabbed 9 rebounds, as properly — he very almost had a triple-double with 10 blocks in it!
These 10 blocks are an NCAA-era report for this system, as properly. Lindenwood would decide up the dub along with the historic rejection whole, defeating the Screaming Eagles 73-60, to enhance to 7-4 in Ohio Valley Convention play.
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