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.
Texas keeps thriving despite schedule, injuries
No. 2 Texas used just two bench players against No. 11 North Carolina, but coach Vic Schaefer certainly picked the right ones. Sophomore forward Justice Carlton racked up 11 points and 3 rebounds in 18 minutes of work, while senior center Kyla Oldacre put in 30 minutes and finished third on the team in scoring with 16 points, while adding a team-high 7 rebounds.
Part of the reason for the lack of additional players is the Longhorns’ health, or current lack of it. Guards Aaliyah Crump and Bryanna Preston have been out with foot and ankle injuries, respectively, for Texas’ last four games, while Missouri transfer Ashton Judd has yet to play in 2025-2026 thanks to a knee injury. And yet, Texas is 9-0 on the season, with wins over ranked UCLA, South Carolina and now North Carolina in three of their last four games.
Despite allowing the Tar Heels to shoot 10-of-13 in the first quarter to go up 21-16, Texas’ defense eventually clamped down while their offense woke up: in the middle quarters, they outscored UNC 47-25, which was enough of a deficit for the Tar Heels that even outscoring Texas in the fourth quarter still had them losing by 15 points, 79-64.
Texas has been tested to this point more than anyone else, given they defeated the previous No. 3 and No. 2 teams, and now No. 11, all while missing a trio of rotation players. Their schedule is much easier for the rest of December, but don’t worry: they have current No. 13 Ole Miss on Jan. 4, South Carolina again, two games against current No. 5 LSU, the second of which is part of a five-game stretch in which Texas will play No. 9 Oklahoma, No. 5 LSU, No. 17 Kentucky, No. 15 Vanderbilt and No. 19 Tennessee. Their February is going to be a tougher cumulative schedule than whatever they draw in March, but if they are healthy by then, well. Look out.
Speaking of South Carolina and ranked matchups
No. 3 South Carolina took on No. 22 Louisville, and things did not go as easily for the Gamecocks as they did the Longhorns. In fact, they were nearly upset here by the Cardinals. While South Carolina scored 27 first-quarter points, they allowed 25, and they let Louisville hang around like that for the entirety of the game, seeing an 11-point lead eventually shrunk before winning 79-77.
A credit to the South Carolina starters that they didn’t fully give the lead away: four of the five of them scored between 11 and 23 points, with senior center Madino Okot leading the way there on 10-for-16 shooting while also pulling down 13 rebounds, and senior guard Ta’Niya Latson just missed with 9 points, but did add 5 assists. They had to be that good to hang on, however, as the bench played for just 18 minutes, and not particularly well, totaling 4 points and 4 rebounds in that time as a unit.
Conversely, Louisville’s bench is why they stuck around as long as they did: sophomore guard Imari Berry had 7 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal in 17 minutes off the bench, junior guard Skylar Jones scored 12 in 19 minutes with a pair of rebounds and senior guard Reyna Scott ended up with 37 minutes, 15 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and a steal. That performance made up for some underwhelming numbers from a few starters, but not by enough to overtake the Gamecocks.
Carraway shoots school-record 11 threes
Charleston Southern’s Armari Carraway had a record-setting performance for the program on Thursday, sinking 11 threes. The junior guard would finish with 36 points on 11-for-17 shooting, as he took just a single non-three and missed it. He shot 11-for-16 on 3-pointers and sank all three of his free throws, though, so, pretty sure he can be forgiven for missing the two.
What stands out even more than the point total and sheer volume of threes is that Carraway played just 22 minutes. You see, Charleston Southern was destroying Warren Wilson — it was 74-24 at the half — and ended up winning 124-63 in the end despite limiting all but two of their starters to under 20 minutes (with Carraway in the lead at 22) and letting eight different bench players get playing time. The bench then proceeded to score 48 points themselves along with grabbing 39 rebounds.
You know you kind of wish you could have seen what Carraway would have done with another even five minutes, but alas, even with him off of the floor Charleston Southern could barely be slowed down, so. This was probably for the best as far as sportsmanship goes.
A monster game from Nicastro
Western Illinois senior Mia Nicastro, who is 6-foot-2 and is deployed both as a guard and a forward by the Leathernecks, scored 32 points and pulled down a Division-I high for the day 18 rebounds. It wasn’t the most points of anyone on Thursday, or even the most points on the women’s side — Radford’s Joi Williams dropped 36 on Navy — but! Those 18 rebounds, or, 14 more than Williams managed. Nicastro also added a couple of assists and a steal to her night because there wasn’t already enough going on in that double-double. Related: those 18 boards represented a career-high, too.
Nicastro’s explosive outing helped lead Western Illinois to a convincing win, 90-55, over St. Francis. And sure, St. Francis isn’t exactly lighting up the NET rankings, but it’s not like this is the lone impact game on Nicastro’s 2025-2026 résumé, either: she’s leading the Ohio Valley Conference in rebounds per game (11.7), shooting percentage (57.3%), free throw percentage (91.2%) and points per game (26.2). She’s scored at least 20 points in every matchup so far, and this is her third double-double in three tries, as well as her second 30-point game: Nicastro dropped 33 on Chicago State on Nov. 17.
LSU’s record streak was snapped
LSU recently broke a record for consecutive 100-point games, which they then extended to eight in a row in their next W. That streak was obviously, hugely impressive, but it was worth noting that they hadn’t truly been tested by any opponent yet, either. Now, now, the NET rankings say so, too: LSU hasn’t had a game against a Quad 1 opponent yet, but they entered play on Thursday with a 7-0 record against Quad 4 teams, i.e. the lowest-ranked opponents in the evaluation system.
Last night, No. 5 LSU took on Duke, and they didn’t score 100 points, snapping the streak. They also didn’t look as if they were overly tested, either, despite the fact that Duke is a pretty solid basketball team despite their now 3-6 record — the two have had completely opposite schedules, with the Blue Devils now playing five Quad 1 teams in their first nine games of the season, with losses in all five matchups. Which is a long way of saying that Duke isn’t as bad as their record suggests, and LSU likely isn’t as dominant as their own record and point differential implies, but also, they dropped 93 points on Duke, so. LSU is pretty great, is the thing, even if they haven’t faced Texas-level tests yet.
It’s worth pointing out, too, that LSU was down 24-20 after the first quarter, then took control in the second by dropping 31 points for a 51-43 lead at the half. Duke would actually keep it pretty close from there, but the damage was already done, so LSU outscoring them by a mere 6 points the rest of the way looked a lot worse in the end than it was, second quarter excepted. It’s going to be fascinating seeing where these two teams end up in the end, considering how their seasons have begun.
Ole Miss stages 19-point comeback against Notre Dame
No. 18 Notre Dame came out swinging against No. 13 Ole Miss, and on the road, too: the Fighting Irish were up 26-14 after the first quarter, and eventually built up a 19-point lead after a Hannah Hidalgo free throw with 5:05 left in the second made it 35-16. Hidalgo, by the way, led all scorers with 28, picked up 5 steals, sank 8-of-8 free throws and even had a few rebounds, but the junior guard turned the ball over half-a-dozen times and also got basically no help from elsewhere: only senior forward Malaya Cowles reached double-digits alongside her, and that was in 26 minutes off the bench.
Ole Miss went to work following that game-high deficit, cutting the lead to 39-29 at the half, then dominating the rest of the way. That Ole Miss won 69-62 obscures that they played a dominating 40-25 second half, thanks to senior forwards Cotie McMahon and Christeen Iwuala catching fire. McMahon scored a team-high 22 points, while Iwuala had a double-double on 18 points and 13 boards, and the pair scored 13 of Ole Miss’ fourth-quarter points while fending off Hidalgo’s attempt to single-handedly bring the lead back to Notre Dame.
Hidalgo, by the way, was ejected thanks to technicals with a few seconds left in the game, while Cowles fouled out before then. Of course, the game was only as close as it was because those two played well in the first place. Notre Dame will need a better-balanced attack against their next ranked opponent, but they don’t have to worry about that until Jan. 18 against North Carolina.
Radford explodes in second OT against Navy
Games off the bench don’t come much bigger than this one. Junior guard Joi Williams didn’t start but played 42 minutes for Radford against Navy in a double-overtime game, wherein she scored a women’s-high 36 points, shot 6-for-11 on 3-pointers and picked up 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal and block each. She also forced the second OT with this three as the clock wound down:
Radford ended up winning after staging a serious comeback: they were down by 17 at one point, and entered the half trailing 35-23, but matched Navy with 22 third-quarter points before besting them 22-10 in the fourth. In the second overtime, junior guard Cate Carlson scored 11 of her 19 points to make sure there would be no third overtime: Radford would win, 97-84.
Bandelj leads all scorers
There were just 11 games in men’s college ball on Thursday, and not a single one featured a ranked opponent. If you thought that would stop the highlight reels, though, then you were wrong. Take Cal Poly vs. Cal State Fullerton, for instance. These two teams do not have a long history of March Madness play — Cal Poly made it once, in that incredible 2014 run that saw them take down No. 1 Texas Southern in the opening round, and Fullerton has appeared four times since their first time in 1978 — but they were still able to provide here as they kicked off Big West Conference play. Cal Poly would win, 94-91, and they were only able to pull that off because sophomore guard Peter Bandelj erupted for 37 points — he’s your leading scorer in D-I from Thursday.
Not only did Bandelj lead Division I in points, but his 37 are also a program record for Cal Poly, as are the nine 3-pointers he sank — Bandelj was a lights-out 9-for-10 from beyond the arc, and added a perfect 6-for-6 on free throws to go with it, as well as 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal. For the year, he’s shooting an even 50% on 3-pointers now, which leads the Big West and is tied for 14th across D-I.
Cal Poly won by just 3 points despite Bandelj going off like that. There’s beautiful basketball everywhere, every night, even where you might least expect it.
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