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.
Michigan State is looking great
Michigan State is ranked No. 11, but the voters might want to consider that the ranking is a little low: they defeated No. 16 North Carolina, 74-58, and just look like a team running on all cylinders.
Junior guard Jeremy Fears had a game-high 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting, and while he just took the one three, he sank it.
Hey, isn’t the bank supposed to be closed on a federal holiday?
Fears also added 5 rebounds and 7 assists in his 36 minutes, and was a huge reason for the Michigan State W. Not the lone reason, though. Senior forward Jaxon Kohler had a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds, senior center Carson Cooper added 14 points on 6-for-10 shooting along with 6 rebounds, Cam Ward scored 11 off of the bench and — you’re never going to believe this — Coen Carr had some big slams.
Michigan State won’t play again until Tuesday, but it’s fair to wonder if they will continue their ascent up the rankings with this dub — the first poll of the year put them at No. 22, then they jumped to No. 17 and stuck there for two weeks, and now they’re at No. 11, but sitting at 7-0 with wins against ranked opponents Arkansas, Kentucky and now UNC.
Their next ranked opponent? Current No. 4 Duke, on Dec. 6.
Texas vs. South Carolina was a March-level preview
No. 4 Texas took on No. 2 South Carolina in the Players Era title game on Thursday, and the Longhorns’ win didn’t just mean they won the tournament and its monetary prize, but also represented Texas’ second-consecutive win against a higher-ranked opponent. To get in this game in the first place, Texas had to dispose of No. 3 UCLA — one wonders if Texas will be the new No. 2 team in next week’s poll, considering the quality of their opponents of late.
Sadly, we won’t get to see Texas play current No. 1 UConn this year unless the two meet up in March, but hey: there’s another game against South Carolina on the schedule, as well as meetings, plural, against current No. 5 LSU. So there’s plenty to feast on even after Thanksgiving even without UConn in there.
Back to yesterday’s game: Rori Harmon had a good but quiet game for the most part, at least compared to her 26-point effort against UCLA the day before. The senior guard scored just 6 points while dishing out 9 assists with 4 rebounds and a steal and block each, but she appeared when it mattered most — right at the end.
With just over two seconds left in the fourth quarter, game tied 64-64, Harmon put up a jumper from outside the paint and sank it to put Texas up 66-64, with 0.7 seconds left on the game clock. And that meant your 2025-2026 Players Era crown belongs to Texas.
UCLA, without Betts, dominated Duke
Since UCLA lost to Texas on Wednesday, they were relegated to the third-place game in the Players Era tournament. The winner of that game was also set to receive a larger prize than the rest of the field, though, so there was more than just pride and a rebound from a tough L at stake here against Duke. And the Bruins were clearly all about both of those things.
All of UCLA’s starters hit double-digits in scoring: Gabriela Jaquez led the way with 23 points, followed by Charlisse Legger-Walker with 20, Kiki Rice with 17, Gianna Kneepkens with 13 and Angela Dugalic with 12. Star center Lauren Betts didn’t play — she hurt her arm on Wednesday against Texas and was scratched for Thursday — but that just didn’t matter for UCLA. They had their starters play 160 combined minutes compared to the bench’s 40, and all five just crushed it.
The Bruins won, 89-59, crushing the Blue Devils by limiting them to just 34% shooting — it didn’t matter that the gap between rebounds wasn’t that huge, or that the two were close in assists and steals, or that UCLA actually turned the ball over more. Duke shot nearly 20 percentage points worse than UCLA did, with the Bruins managing to go 13-for-22 on threes in the process, and that was that. UCLA used Duke to rebound from a tough defeat on Wednesday, and the Blue Devils now sit 3-5 while UCLA is now 7-1 with a defeat to the current No. 4 the lone blemish on their record.
TCU rallies, upsets Florida
Florida came into their game against TCU in the Rady Children’s Invitational as the No. 10 team in the country, but you have to imagine that’s going to change come the next poll. TCU — unranked and 3-2 on the season entering play — is now 4-2 after a shocking upset of the Gators.
With 15:14 left in the second half, Florida was up 53-43, with a 94.5% win probability at that point. And then things turned around for TCU: with 12:31 left, it was 57-56 after a Jace Posey free throw, and TCU took the lead with 10:13 left, 60-50, following a Jayden Pierre jumper.
There was no large lead opened up the rest of the game by either side, as they just went back-and-forth for the remaining 10 minutes, and the Horned Frogs came out on top, 84-80, shrugging off a 3-pointer with 3 seconds left by way of Brock Harding sinking both of his free throws to give them back a larger cushion than there were seconds left.
Now, not to put too fine of a point on the level of upset here, but TCU had not received a single vote in the AP poll this season, and Florida began at No. 3 before sliding down to 10. They have some more sliding to do now, considering. TCU moves on to the finals of the Invitational, where they will take on the subject of the next section.
Boyd dominates for Wisconsin
Nick Boyd and Wisconsin took on Providence on Thursday, and it ended up being a high-scoring affair with the Badgers crossing the century mark. Boyd, a senior guard and transfer from San Diego State now with his third team, led all Division I scorers with 36 points — a career-high — to help give Wisconsin the W in the Rady Children’s Invitational.
Boyd didn’t “just” score 36 points, however. He also had 7 rebounds and 7 assists, and shot 60% for the day. While the Wisconsin bench played a bunch — they used 13 players in total, and the bench racked up 63 minutes — the starters along with Boyd were what propelled the Wisconsin to a win here: Austin Rapp scored 20 with 8 rebounds, Nolan Winter managed a double-double with 19 points and 10 boards, and John Blackwell contributed 11 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals.
And as said before, the Badgers now move on to the tourney finals on Friday, where they will face TCU, fresh off of their upset of No. 10 Florida.
Nivar posts a triple-double
There were a lot of big games and double-doubles in Thursday’s various tournament games, but there was just the one triple-double in all of that: North Carolina’s Indya Nivar was responsible, as she scored 13 points, pulled down a dozen rebounds and finished with 10 steals in an 83-48 win for No. 12 North Carolina over South Dakota State.
She just ripped that last steal away to seal the triple-double, too.
This was just the second triple-double in program history, and she picked a good time for it with North Carolina participating in the Cancun Challenge. The Tar Heels will play again on Friday, this time against Kansas State.
Pierre sets career-high for rebounds with 21
Khamil Pierre had a Thursday high of 21 boards and 12 points to notch her fourth double-double of this young season, and those rebounds represented a career-high for the junior forward, too. Pierre, who transferred from Vanderbilt, was huge in NC State’s 79-67 win over Green Bay: she had 21 boards, and Green Bay as a team had 30, with 17 of her rebounds coming on the defensive side compared to their 23.
Alright back to the boards. Pierre now ranks third in D-I in total rebounds with 86 — tied with Troy’s Zay Dyer — and is fourth in rebounds per game with 12.3, also tied with Dyer. The junior forward is first in the Atlantic Coast Conference in rebounds, as well, and it’s not particularly close: No. 2 in the ACC is Virginia Tech’s Kilah Freelon, at 10.7 per game.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate her non-rebound contributions, too.
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