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 the weekend in college basketball.
Peterson is back, and Kansas was rolling
No. 21 Kansas has played well enough to avoid tumbling through the rankings in the month they were missing freshman star Darryn Peterson, but let’s be real here: he’s a potential No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, this is a guy they need in their lineup. Peterson was back on Sunday, returning from a hamstring injury, and he looked sharp. The 6-foot-5 guard scored 17 points with 3 rebounds and an assist and a steal each in 23 minutes, helping Kansas take down rival Missouri 80-60.
The timing of all of this is tough for the Jayhawks — they had to face the likes of Duke, Tennessee and UConn sans Peterson, and lost two of those three matchups — but they now get to settle into a comparative lull in the schedule before things ramp up again in January when, in the span of a month, they take on now-No. 10 Iowa State, No. 9 BYU, No. 19 Texas Tech, No. 2 Arizona and then Iowa State again across nine games. If all goes well, Peterson will be all settled in before that happens.
UConn honors legend Sue Bird
They don’t come much better than Sue Bird, and UConn recognized as much on Sunday with a rarity: a jersey retirement ceremony. Bird, who was inducted into both the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2025, has a ridiculous set of career accomplishments. She was Naismith College Player of the Year in 2002 and a two-time NCAA Champion. She is a four-time WNBA champ with the Seattle Storm, and a five-time champ in the Russian National League, too. She made All-WNBA First Team on five occasions, and second team another three while making the All-Star team 13 times.
Bird is also a five-time Olympic gold medalist, with the only other basketball player to manage the feat her former teammate at UConn and on multiple Olympic squads, Diana Taurasi. There’s a reason Bird’s coach on the Huskies, Geno Auriemma, has called her the greatest point guard in the history of women’s basketball, and it’s because she’s got the résumé to back up such a lofty claim.
And to cap off the honors, UConn also crushed fellow Big East squad DePaul, 102-35. Sarah Strong led the way with 20 points, 5 rebounds, 5 steals and 4 assists in just 17 minutes, on 7-for-9 shooting.
Maryland storms back in double-OT to avoid upset
For a while there, No. 7 Maryland looked like they were in trouble against Minnesota. And it’s no wonder, too, because the Golden Gophers are a good basketball team even if they are unranked: before Sunday’s game, they sat 17th in Division-I in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET rankings. And they looked like it against the top-10 Terrapins, forcing them into not one but two overtimes on Sunday.
Minnesota was also winning 99-91 with 44 seconds left in that second OT. That’s when they fouled Sarah Poffenbarger, though, and also when the wheels started to come off. The senior guard would hit both of her free throws, and then sophomore guard Kyndal Walker — who had just subbed in for Poffenbarger after the free throws — hit a layup and the foul to make it 99-95 with 37 seconds remaining.
Junior guard Oluchi Okananwa would then notch a steal, make her own layup and draw a foul all of two seconds later — suddenly, it was 99-98 with 35 to go. Poffenbarger would sub back in with 12 seconds remaining, and hit a layup two ticks later to put Maryland ahead, 100-99, and that’s where the score would stay. Minnesota senior guard Mara Braun missed a last-second 3-point attempt, and center Sophie Hart couldn’t do anything with the offensive board from it before time expired.
31 rebounds?!
Megan Nestor had a wild game on Saturday for North Texas against Texas Southern. The Mean Green’s senior forward, in just her ninth NCAA game, exploded for not just 34 points, but also 31 rebounds. You will not be surprised to hear that both are season highs.
Nestor previously played for the NAIA school Wayland Baptist University, where she was a First-Team All-American in 2024-2025, and transferred to North Texas and NCAA D-I ball for her senior year after breaking her own program record for rebounds in a season. And on Saturday, Texas Southern got a taste of what she’d been doing to NAIA schools for a couple of years
It’s incredible to think that a 17-for-22 shooting performance would be the secondary thing going on here, but again: 31 rebounds. Thirty-one of them! It’s just the third 30-point, 30-rebound game in D-I basketball in the last 45 years, and it broke both the program and American Conference record for rebounds in a single game.
And all of that from someone who, according to North Texas’ coach Jason Burton, started playing basketball just four years ago… and who asked during her official visit to campus what the Mean Green rebounding record was.
She knew what she wanted to do, and she’s already done it. Incredible.
Iowa State shocks Purdue
Being ranked No. 10 is nothing to sneeze at, but the thing about being the No. 1 team is that any loss is an upset. Losing to the No. 10 team as the No. 1 would be surprising, but maybe not a disaster depending on how good that team is. Losing to the No. 10 team as the No. 1 by 23 points, though? Well, that’s going to hit a lot harder, and it’s also exactly what happened to Purdue against Iowa State on Saturday.
The defeat was enough for FOX Sports analyst Casey Jacobsen to drop the Boilermakers all the way to No. 7 (from No. 3) in his own top 25, while vaulting the Cyclones over them into the top five. What a devastating way to lose, and by a team that had already slipped out of the No. 1 spot in the AP poll on one occasion this season, too.
Let’s not make it all about what Purdue failed to do, however. Iowa State came to play: four of their starters reached double-digit scoring, with 6-foot-8 junior forward Milan Momcilovic leading the way with a game-high 20 points. They shot 54% overall and 48% on threes — 11-for-23 as a team — well over twice what Purdue managed both in terms of raw made 3-pointers and success rate. Purdue didn’t lose the rebound battle or fail to move the ball around — they just could not make their shots, and Iowa State’s defense played a significant role in that.
St. John’s just beats Ole Miss
St. John’s started out the season as the top team in the Big East and No. 5 in the national poll, but have slipped all the way to No. 23. Their victory on Saturday against Ole Miss might not help change any of their detractor’s minds, either, as they eked out a win over an unranked opponent that sits in the triple-digits in NET rankings, 63-58.
However! Senior Zuby Ejiafor had himself a game, with the 6-foot-9 forward blocking 8 shots, the most of anyone all weekend in D-I ball. He also had 15 points — with the bulk of them coming on 9-for-11 free-throw shooting — to go with 9 rebounds and 3 steals. Ejiafor very nearly had a triple-double, but you can’t really ding someone for missing out on the blocks portion of that.
Kansas State upsets No. 13 Ole Miss
While Ole Miss should be happy about their men’s team pushing St. John’s like that, their women’s team was on the wrong side of an upset against unranked Kansas State.
This one was closely fought throughout: the largest lead at the start of any quarter was 3, when Ole Miss was up 31-28 coming out of halftime. And it was decided on the shot seen above, that went through with one second left on the clock, giving the No. 13 team in the nation no actual time to respond.
That was freshman guard Brandie Harrod fighting underneath and eventually getting that basket, by the way: she finished with just 4 points, but she sure made the last ones count and overshadow her 7 rebounds.
Duke, Wisconsin upset Michigan State
Just a disaster weekend for Michigan State basketball, both the men’s and women’s team. For the former, the Spartans had moved up to No. 7 in the rankings, and deservedly so, after plowing through competition for weeks. On Saturday, they took on No. 4 Duke and suffered their first loss of the season in a 66-60 defeat.
Now, there’s nothing to be ashamed about in losing to the No. 4 team, and especially by what amounts to a couple of buckets. Still, the first loss of the season — and one at home — is going to sting, in no small part because the difference was a couple of buckets. None of Michigan State’s starters besides senior center Carson Cooper had a big game — Cooper logged 16 points and rebounds each in an impressive double-double — and the bench couldn’t make up for the difference. Duke, similarly, didn’t get much from their bench besides time to rest the starters, and freshman Cameron Boozer was the lone true standout thanks to a similar game to Cooper’s: the freshman forward had a game-high 18 points and 15 boards for his own double-double. Boozer also did most of his damage in the second half, where he scored 16 of his points and pulled down over half his rebounds.
And then there’s Michigan State’s women, who lost to Wisconsin. While the Badgers aren’t ranked like Duke, they’re still a good basketball team, and showed as much on Sunday in a 78-64 dub against the No. 20 team.
Listen, some days you just get bounces like this.
None of Wisconsin’s starters blew things open on the scoreboard, but they were almost all contributing in huge ways. Gift Uchenna Okeke and Kyrrah Daniels each scored 14 points, while the senior forward Uchenna Okeke also pulled down a game-high 15 rebounds. Senior guard Ronnie Porter had her own double-double with 12 points and 11 boards, and dropped 8 dimes. Conversely, just one Michigan State starter even reached double-digit scoring.
Wisconsin played them hard, and it showed in Michigan State’s abysmal shooting: 38% overall, and 23% from three. It’s hard to win when you shoot like that, especially with Wisconsin going 11-for-24 from beyond the arc.
Fairfield crushes Richmond
Ranked matchups rock, but previews of potential tournament teams are exciting, too: Fairfield’s women entered play on Sunday 48th by NET ranking, and took on Richmond, which sat 37th. The two didn’t look that close when they actually took to the court, though, with Fairfield dominating, 93-73.
Junior guard Kaety L’Amoreaux’s day was the cause, as she erupted for 31 points, 6 steals and 6 rebounds on 11-for-18 shooting. She was also 5-for-9 from three, which helped Fairfield to 19 3-pointers for the day — a program record.
This is a sneaky good basketball team with a whole lot of offensive weapons, and if Richmond wasn’t already aware of that, they sure are now.
Sullivan scores 37, but Ohio State wins
Your leading scorer for the weekend was Northwestern’s Grace Sullivan, but it came in a losing effort against No. 23 Ohio State. Still, going down 79-70 to a ranked team isn’t the end of the world, and Sullivan going off for a career-high 37 against a team the AP is fond of says a lot about her abilities.
The senior forward is leading the Big Ten in points per game at 24.3 while pulling down 9.1 rebounds per game, and while she had 37 and 8 here (along with 2 assists and 3 steals), the Buckeyes would not be denied. They were down 16-10 after the first quarter, but a 23-9 second put them ahead, and though they shot 22% from three, they also hit 19-of-22 free throws, scored 40 points in the paint and logged 23 points off of turnovers. Northwestern kept it close thanks to Ohio State’s poor long-range shot and Sullivan’s explosion, but they will have to tighten up elsewhere to win one of these against a ranked opponent.
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