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.
Iowa State gets upset twice
Iowa State’s men’s basketball team was moved up to No. 2 in the poll a week ago following Michigan’s surprise upset loss to Wisconsin, but that rise is sure to be short-lived. On Tuesday, the Cyclones fell to a resurgent (and healthy) Kansas, and then lost their second game of the week and season to Cincinnati on Saturday.
Iowa State went into halftime down, 35-31, and then never lead in the second half — the closest the Cyclones got was tying things at 38 with 18:09 on the clock, and then Cincinnati went on a 10-0 run to push its lead to 56-42 over the course of the next five minutes. While Iowa State would close the gap a bit, it couldn’t catch the Bearcats, in no small part because Cincinnati was able to convert Iowa State turnovers into points at a much higher rate than happened to them. The Bearcats forced 12 turnovers and scored 20 points off of them, compared to 8 and 10 for Iowa State. Cincinnati would win by just about that much, 79-70, with nearly everything else being comparatively equal, dropping a team that was undefeated this time last week to 3-2 in a high-quality Big 12. It was Cincinnati’s highest-ranked win since 2012, and the kind that a team on the bubble like the Bearcats can point to come selection time.
That’s bad news, but things are much worse for the Cyclones’ women’s team. Iowa State has been without junior forward Addy Brown thanks to a lower body injury for four games now, and the Cyclones have lost all four of them and five in a row. Oklahoma State routed Iowa State on Sunday, taking advantage of Brown’s absence and the Cyclones’ inability to feed junior center and Division I women’s basketball leading scorer Audi Crooks with opportunities to score in the paint in an 86-58 win.
Crooks scored just 15 on 6-for-14 shooting, and pulled down 7 rebounds. Junior guard Jada Williams, who also has to shoulder more of the load with Brown out, shot 6-for-13 and just 1-for-5 from three — with no dominating game in the paint and no long-distance shooting to make up for it, Iowa State got rocked. Oklahoma State outrebounded them, outran them — the Cowgirls had 22 fast-break points compared to the Cyclones’ 3 — hit the deep ball (14-for-37) and was even with Iowa State in the paint, 26-26, despite the presence of Crooks.
Shutting down Iowa State and outdistancing them by this much was a team effort, but junior guard Stailee Heard deserves the spotlight. She logged a triple-double with a game-high 18 points, 17 rebounds, 10 assists, 2 steals and a block. Those 17 boards were the second-most for the day in women’s Division I basketball, and she finished first in assists — a triple-double is impressive enough just for existing, but Heard dominated in hers. It was just the third-ever triple-double for a Cowgirls player, by the way.
The Big Ten Tiers
This past weekend helped determine which Big Ten teams are true contenders, which are on the right side of the bubble and which are underachieving expectations. Nebraska stayed undefeated with a victory over Northwestern. Michigan bounced back, beating Oregon. Purdue held off USC and Michigan State took care of Washington. Illinois outlasted frisky Minnesota
That is the class of the Big Ten. Those five teams are in play for the four double-byes in the conference tournament and a subsequent top four seed in the NCAA Tournament. There’s a canyon between them and the field.
Ohio State is a clear bubble team sitting 7th in the Big Ten, but earned a big-time win over another bubble team, UCLA, on Saturday. The Buckeyes beat the Bruins 86-74 as star guard Bruce Thornton had 30 points. The result left UCLA coach Mick Cronin questioning the roster-construction decisions he made in the offseason.
“Blame me,” Cronin said. “I recruited (the players). I signed them as free agents. We’re not going to win meaningful games if we can’t stop the other team.”
He belabored the point, saying there’s nothing he can do to turn around UCLA’s season because he “can’t trade guys.” That is the reality of college basketball. While it essentially mimics professional sports, once you build a team and the season tips off, there’s little a coach can do to change personnel, and Cronin hasn’t been able to press the right buttons with his roster this season.
Oklahoma loses to LSU in third-straight defeat
What a rough stretch for Oklahoma. The Sooners made it to No. 5 in the poll in the first vote of the new year (and arrived in the top-10 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, as well), then fell to No. 13 following back-to-back losses to ranked Ole Miss and Kentucky squads. The week off to recuperate did not fix what ailed them: Oklahoma took on No. 6 LSU on Sunday at home, and were crushed, 91-72.
LSU led for 78% of the game, and while the 91 points sticks out, that the Tigers limited the Sooners to 37% shooting despite a 12-for-34 showing from deep is the more impressive figure. Oklahoma had shot over 46% on the season overall, and still ranks 36th in the country after losing to LSU. Senior guard Payton Verhulst scored 21 points on 7-for-17 shooting while hitting 5 threes, and senior center Raegan Beers scored 10 on 5-for-8 shooting with a game-high 11 rebounds for the double-double, but the other three starters shot a combined 9-for-38, or 24%, for 30 points, while the bench contributed another 11.
The Tigers are clearly putting things together after a rough start to conference play, as they have taken down Georgia, then-undefeated Texas and now ranked Oklahoma all in a row to move to 3-2 in the SEC.
Texas Tech upsets BYU with D
No. 11 has been scoring an average of 86.6 points per game this season, but No. 15 Texas Tech had something to say about that. The Red Raiders beat BYU, 84-71, largely on the strength of stifling freshman phenom AJ Dybantsa. While the forward is scoring 22.5 points per game on the season, here he was held to 13 on 6-for-17 shooting without a made three, owing largely to Texas Tech refusing to give him the space he needed for clean shots. With senior forward Keba Keita a non-factor both in scoring and in rebounds — he did not score in 21 minutes and pulled down just 4 boards, half his average — there was little stopping Texas Tech from a W even with sophomore guard Robert Wright III scoring 28 points.
The Red Raiders almost exclusively played their starters, with the bench logging 11 minutes total. Pushing them worked, however, with JT Toppin (27 points), Christian Anderson (22) and LeJuan Watts (20 points) all scoring at least 20 points, while junior forward Toppin also had a game-high 13 rebounds for the double-double.
Both teams are now 4-1 in Big 12 play, putting them in a tie for third in the conference behind No. 1 Arizona — victorious this weekend to remain undefeated — and Houston, which has suffered one loss on the year but not in Big 12 play. Lucky for BYU and Texas Tech, Iowa State is next up in the standings in fifth after its aforementioned defeat against Cincinnati.
Not all was well for Texas Tech basketball this weekend, however: The Lady Raiders suffered their first defeat of the year, 65-59, against Kansas State. While the Texas Tech bench played very well, with senior forward Jada Malone and senior guard Snudda Collins combining for 30 of the reserves’ 31 points, that figure also proved to be more than half of what the Lady Raiders managed as a team, with the non-Bailey Maupin starters scoring a combined 13 points in 101 minutes. Maupin, a senior guard, dropped 18 in 37 on some iffy shooting that still looked downright star-like next to her fellow starters.
A weekend of upsets
Lots of additional upsets over the weekend beyond what’s been explored so far, so let’s run down a few of them here. No. 7 Kentucky took on Mississippi State on Sunday, and lost 71-59. Despite every Kentucky starter scoring between 10 and 15 points, those numbers are also slightly inflated by the Wildcats going to the bench for all of 11 combined minutes. With that taken into account, it’s clear those figures aren’t nearly high enough to be impressed by — Mississippi State certainly wasn’t, and didn’t have to be with senior forward Kharyssa Richardson leading all scorers with a career-high 23 points while pulling down 7 rebounds and notching a block. Freshman forward Madison Francis had 6 blocks of her own, by the way — she leads the SEC with 3.1 per game.
The Bulldogs outrebounded the Wildcats a whopping 52 to 35, a product of Kentucky shooting 32% overall and a paltry 5-for-29 from three. Mississippi State ended up with 42 defensive boards, as Kentucky not only missed all those shots, but couldn’t get anyone to grab the board for them, either.
No. 16 Ole Miss fell to Georgia, 82-59, as it was apparently just that kind of weekend for teams named the Bulldogs. The Lady Bulldogs held the Rebels to just 30% shooting and 5-for-19 from deep while shooting a lights-out 55% and 50% themselves — Ole Miss posted its lowest shooting percentage and second-worst point total of the season. Sophomore guard Dani Carnegie was responsible for a not-insignificant portion of that production with a career-best 32 points on 11-for-17 shooting, including 5-for-8 on 3-pointers, and she pulled down 11 rebounds for the big-time double-double, as well.
On the men’s side, No. 14 North Carolina suffered its second-straight loss, the first to Stanford and the latest to California, 84-78. Once again, UNC failed to slow its opponents offense even a little bit: the Golden Bears shot 50% overall and 54% on threes — 14-for-26 — which allowed three starters to score at least 19 points. This in the game directly after Kentucky’s defense allowed Stanford to go 57% overall and 16-for-28 from beyond the arc. California and Stanford’s KenPom Offensive Ratings are 89th and 91st, respectively, which calls into question what’s going on with a defense that still ranks 31st by those same measures even after these two performances.
California didn’t dominate in the paint — in fact, it was outscored there 32-18 — and the two tied in rebounds while sitting two apart in both turnovers and points scored off them. This was entirely a matter of not being able to stop California from scoring at will, especially from deep, and since Kentucky shot well itself, the Golden Bears’ margin of victory was just 6 points. Against an offense that’s supposed to be great, though? If Kentucky plays like this against them, it’s in serious trouble.
A 43-point game and program record
Maryland took down Penn State on Sunday, 96-73, and David Coit can take the bulk of the credit there. The senior guard scored 43 points — the most of anyone in men’s or women’s Division I basketball over the weekend — on 14-for-23 shooting that included a 9-for-15 performance from beyond the arc.
He had a single rebound and 4 assists to go with it, which doesn’t jump off the page, sure. But: 43 points, with half of the Terrapins’ program-record 18 threes.
Defending champs back?
After winning the 2025 NCAA Championship, and seeing their three starting guards graduate — and play meaningful NBA minutes — the Florida Gators got off to a slow start. But the Gators have found a groove lately, winning eight of their last nine, earning their best win of the season on Saturday: a 98-94 victory at No. 10 Vanderbilt.
The Gators have a high floor because of their frontcourt depth. Senior Rueben Chinyelu has had a double-double in three straight games, junior Thomas Haugh is leading the team in scoring at 17.4 points per game and Alex Condon is an asset on both sides of the ball. But what’s helped Florida increase their season recently is improved guard-play.
On Saturday, Princeton transfer Xavian Lee had one of his best games of the season. He scored 20 points while shooting 8-of-13 from the field, and hit a go-ahead step-back 3-pointer with 44 seconds left. He showed off his defensive chops and speed, too, which helped Florida get to the point where that go-ahead shot would even matter.
After losing to UConn nine games into the season, Florida was 5-4, matching its total losses in its championship 2024-2025 run before conference play even began. Since then, though, the Gators are 8-1, putting them at 13-5 overall and 4-1 in SEC play. A dramatic turnaround, but it’s worth remembering that Florida has played the 9th-toughest schedule in Division I men’s basketball this season per NET, as well — the Gators might be even better than this shift indicates.
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