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.
Arizona barely survived BYU
A win is a win in the standings, and that’s what No. 1 Arizona came away with against No. 13 BYU on Monday night to remain as one of the three undefeated teams this season. It was certainly a close call getting that W, though, as the Wildcats defeated the Cougars by a single bucket, 86-83, barely surviving a 52-point second-half onslaught by BYU to do it.
If freshman forward AJ Dybantsa had a better night shooting, then Arizona would be 20-1 instead of 21-0 right now. And not even a meaningfully better night of shooting, either: if he had gone 2-for-8 or 3-for-8 from beyond the arc instead of nailing a single 3 in 8 attempts, the Wildcats might have suffered defeat. Dybantsa was cold from the field, though, shooting just 6-for-24 while picking up 11 of his 24 points from the line. And sophomore guard Robert Wright III wasn’t much better for the Cougars, either, going 3-for-16 overall and 1-for-5 from 3. The two combined for 56% of BYU’s total shots but just 12.5% of its buckets — that the game was as close as it was despite that is a testament to the shooting of everyone else, but in the end the Cougars fell just short.
Arizona’s issue was that it had huge games from two starters — freshman guard Brayden Burries and senior guard Jaden Bradley, who had 29 and 26 points, respectively — but then two others with 10 points each and a bench that scored 9 total in 49 minutes. Those same bench players at least added 9 rebounds to the mix, but it was a relatively quiet night from the foursome otherwise, and everything ended up coming down to a game-saving block by Burries with mere seconds left on the clock, which also led to a couple of of his 13 made free throws.
Still! A 44-point first half where the Wildcats also held BYU to 31 points helped them hold off the Cougars just enough, despite a failure to contain their offense even a little bit in the second half. And because of that, Arizona remains undefeated, while BYU is now 5-2 in a hotly contested Big 12, in a three-way tie for fourth with Kansas and Iowa State.
Duke crushed Louisville
While Arizona barely escaped its ranked-ranked matchup with BYU, No. 4 Duke had no such issue disposing of No. 20 Louisville. The Blue Devils routed the Cardinals, 83-52, to improve to 8-0 in the Atlantic Coast.
The Cardinals just couldn’t get anything together. Louisville shot 30% as a team and that was with an 11-for-34 night from deep. Duke wasn’t as reliant on the 3, but shot 51% overall and outrebounded the Cardinals to a staggering degree, 47 to 26, which helped result in a 42 to 10 advantage on points scored in the paint. Louisville only turned the ball over 12 times — same as Duke — but letting the Blue Devils rack up 32 defensive rebounds when, as a team, the Cardinals had 26 total, explains a lot about the final score.
No one for Duke had a standout performance with gaudy numbers, but no such performance was needed. Freshman forward Cameron Boozer had a double-double — his 10th of the season — with 19 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore center Patrick Ngonba added 15 points, sophomore guard Isaiah Evans had the same and freshman guard Nikolas Khamenia scored 14 off the bench in a mere 15 minutes, thanks to 5-for-6 shooting that included a trio of 3s.
No. 25 Washington beat Rutgers
Washington stuck at No. 25 in the poll this week, and its first opponent coming out of that vote was Rutgers. While Rutgers has struggled in Big Ten play this year — it came into the matchup at just 1-7 in conference action — the Huskies are not in a position to take any opponent lightly. They are in the poll, sure, but you can also say that about the five teams in front of them in the Big Ten standings: UCLA, Iowa, Michigan — which Washington upset to kick off the new year — Michigan State and Ohio State.
Luckily for the Huskies, they didn’t have an off night or play down to the level of their competition. Instead, Washington took care of business, downing the Scarlet Knights, 76-48. The Huskies held Rutgers under 20 points in every quarter, and under 10 in two of them, and did all of that while leaving quite a bit of the playing time to the bench, which racked up 82 minutes and saw eight different players take the floor.
Freshman forward Brynn McGaughy led the attack from the bench with 17 points in 25 minutes, while also pulling down 7 rebounds and blocking a shot. The standout from the starters, though, was senior center Yulia Grabovskaia. The 6-foot-5 Russian scored a modest 9 points on 4-for-9 shooting, but she led all of Division I, men’s and women’s, with 17 rebounds, helping Washington trounce Rutgers in that category, too, 51 to 30. Of the 17 boards, 10 were offensive, and even with the majority going that way the Huskies still had more defensive rebounds (33) than Rutgers had total boards.
Washington is now 6-3 in the Big Ten, in sixth and in line for a single bye in the conference tourney but at least within striking distance of one of those double-bye spots. Rutgers is just trying to stay out of the basement currently occupied by winless Indiana and Penn State teams.
Ohio State’s much-needed W against Penn State
The Big Ten is ridiculous this season, and it means that finding an edge in the conference tournament in March is going to be difficult. Nebraska, Michigan, Michigan State and Illinois make up the first four teams in the Big Ten, currently on pace for the four double byes available. Then there’s Purdue (7-2), Wisconsin (6-3) and UCLA (6-3) taking up the next three spots out of five that would earn a team a first-round bye. After that is Ohio State, which entered its matchup against Penn State at 5-4, balancing in between a future with a bye and one without.
The Buckeyes got a sorely needed W against the Nittany Lions, which remain winless in Big Ten action, downing them 84-78. The problem, as it was for BYU, was that Penn State just didn’t show up enough in the first half: Ohio State went into halftime up 18, 50-32, and despite a turnaround in the second half the Lions just couldn’t make up for that deficit in full.
Sophomore guard John Mobley Jr. led all scorers with 25 points, and he had 2 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals to go with them. While Ohio State was outrebounded, 31-21, it still managed to outscore Penn State in the paint by 10 points and forced the Lions into 18 turnovers. Penn State shot 50% overall and dropped 46 in the second half, outscoring Ohio State by 12 there, but the hole was just too big to climb out of even with the Buckeyes’ defense unable to slow the Lions.
Morgan State led the way on Monday
There wasn’t much basketball on the schedule on Monday for either men’s or women’s, but the MEAC decided to grace us with a game worth looking back at to help fill the void. Morgan State defeated Norfolk State, 79-78, and did it with a go-ahead jump shot from Alfred Worrell Jr. with just two seconds left on the clock.
Morgan State collected a rebound on a missed free throw and the ball got to the senior guard, who then charged all the way down court with it, shed his in-motion defender with a bit of a push to create space, then got off a shot as the clock wound down ever-closer to its end. That brought Worrell to 33 points, which on top of putting Morgan State ahead for good also happened to lead Division I men’s basketball on Monday.
Worrell wasn’t the only Bears player to lead D-I with his performance last night, however. Senior forward Marland Harris scored just 6 points on the night — of course, every score mattered in a 1-point game — but he had 14 rebounds and 6 blocks, both of which topped the leaderboards in men’s college basketball on Monday.
Morgan State is now 4-2 in MEAC play, good for third in the conference, while Norfolk State fell to an even 3-3 and fifth with the L.
No. 6 LSU beat Florida
After starting off SEC play 0-2, LSU has now won five in a row and sits in fourth in the conference, behind Tennessee (6-0), Vanderbilt (6-1) and South Carolina (6-1), while sitting a win up on Texas and Ole Miss, which also have two losses apiece. LSU picked up that fifth-straight win against Florida on Monday, beating the Gators 89-60.
The Tigers’ offense has gotten most of the attention, and with good reason: LSU is the highest-scoring team in Division I women’s basketball, and while a whole bunch of that came from tearing through a bunch of Quad 4 teams before conference play, it’s also 5-2 in the SEC, which just set a record for having 10 teams in the poll at once. Sure, LSU hasn’t played the schedule of UConn or UCLA or Iowa, all three of which have played top-5 toughest schedules out of 363, but the overall difficulty level of LSU’s schedule increases with every game during conference play, and the Tigers did defeat Texas earlier this month.
Anyway! The offense is obviously good, but the defense starred on Monday as the Tigers held Florida to between 10 and 16 points in all but one quarter, while limiting them to 37% shooting. Jada Richard led all scorers with 20 points on 6-for-10 shooting, and the sophomore guard added 3 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal. The bench played considerable minutes here, which makes the defensive performance more impressive, with the two highlights being sophomore forward Kate Koval grabbing a game-high 10 boards in 15 minutes, while junior guard MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 15 points on 5-for-9 shooting and a perfect 4-for-4 from the line in 19 minutes.
It will take more of the season to see just how good LSU actually is, but we’ll have a better sense of that soon enough: a rematch against Texas comes in early February, and shortly after that is a showdown against South Carolina.
