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 narrowly avoids upset
The sixth-ranked Wolverines needed overtime to outlast a feisty Wake Forest team, ultimately edging them 85-84. While Yaxel Lendeborg was the Wolverines’ prized transfer portal possession, it was UCLA transfer Aday Mara who owned the night as Lendeborg struggled. Mara posted a career-high 18 points and 13 rebounds to go with 5 blocks. And he dissuaded Demon Deacons’ guard Nate Calmese from scoring on the final possession.
Mara has always shown greatness in spurts. Throughout his time in Westwood, his issue was conditioning. But on Tuesday, he played 37 minutes, showing no signs of weariness as he lifted the Wolverines.
Lendeborg, on the other hand, has yet to find his place in the offense because of the crowded frontcourt.
Wake did do this, though
While Wake Forest wasn’t able to pull off the W, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Washington transfer and senior guard Mekhi Mason scored 16 points, pulled down 7 rebounds, logged 5 assists and had 3 steals, too. Sophomore forward Juke Harris led Wake in points with 19, while collecting 6 rebounds of his own and a pair of steals. And Myles Colvin was vital off the bench, with 31 minutes played in which he scored 13 points, hauled in 7 rebounds, managed a block and an assist each and also had this dunk.
You don’t want to throw the word poster around lightly, but that? That’s some posterizing right there. Too bad for Wake Forest that it came in what ended up being a defeat, but everyone in neutral territory can appreciate that for the beauty it was.
Crowd fooled
You know how sometimes you see a crowd get real excited for a fly ball in an MLB game because they think it’s a home run, and they aren’t watching the outfielders so they don’t see that it’s actually about to be a routine out? This is kind of like that, in that you can see a significant portion of the on-camera crowd celebrating what they thought was a 3-pointer, but it didn’t go through the net, just into it.
But hey, watching the ball instead of the players is a thing everyone does. And the official signaled for a three at first, too, so that lets them all right off the hook.
More like Last Night in College Basketmeowl
Baylor head coach Nicki Collen now has a new four-week-old kitten, because she found it behind the fender cap in her car after hearing it meowing from there. As she told the Associated Press, “I tried to bring it back as I know who the mom is, but now he’s here with us. The mothering instinct took over. I wanted to keep it alive since its mom wouldn’t take it. I won’t take it to a shelter.”
The kitten is named Sailor, after the Sailor Bear logo used by Baylor back in the 1950s. Just weeks old and already a college basketball fan committed to a retro aesthetic.
South Carolina is shorthanded, but that hasn’t stopped them
No. 2 South Carolina, already missing Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins due to ACL tears, was down another player on Tuesday, as the Gamecocks suspended sophomore guard Maddy McDaniel without announcing a reason for said suspension. Being down a backup guard didn’t hurt them against Clemson, however, as South Carolina took them down, 65-37, using a nine-player rotation.
As you could probably discern from the final score, South Carolina’s defense held Clemson in check, but what that alone doesn’t tell you is that not a single player on the Tigers reached double-digits in scoring, while they also lost the battle on the boards, especially on the defensive side: South Carolina pulled down 37 there, with Clemson nabbing 10 offensive boards, on a night with plenty of opportunities to pull one down, given the Tigers shot just 23% – 14-for-61 – for the night.
South Carolina also blocked 10 shots, and it wasn’t just their bigger players swatting them down. Senior guard Ta’Niya Latson is 5-foot-8, but that didn’t stop her from getting in on the fun:
Sophomore forward Joyce Edwards led all scorers with 18 while also collecting 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 blocks, and Mississippi State transfer and senior forward Madina Okot had a double-double, courtesy 12 points and a game-high 12 rebounds.
Next up for the Gamecocks? A top-10 matchup against No. 8 Southern Cal on Saturday.
Louisville Wins Battle for Kentucky
No. 12 Louisville took on No. 9 Kentucky in Louisville on Tuesday, and came away a winner, 96-88. In a game that close, it doesn’t take much to differentiate yourself, and what put Louisville ahead was having two players serve as reliable sources of offense rather than just the one, like Kentucky had in senior guard Denzel Aberdeen. While Aberdeen was the only player on the Wildcats with more than 12 points – he scored 26 – the Cardinals featured senior guard Ryan Conwell, with 24 points, and freshman guard Mikel Brown, who led all scorers with 29.
Brown would add 2 rebounds and 5 assists to his game, while senior guard J’Vonne Hadley brought relief from the bench in the form of 9 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and a block in 27 minutes. Louisville was never running away with it, but these performances ensured that they led throughout the vast majority of the game, and were able to hold on late in the second half even as Kentucky surged to cut the lead from 20 – where it sat with 11:56 to go in the second half, at 78-58 – to just four, 88-84, with 3:16 left in regulation.
A 38-point effort out of Lincoln
The leading D-I scorer for Tuesday managed as much in a losing effort, with Lincoln guard Laolu Kalejaiye putting up 38 points in a 113-76 defeat against Pepperdine. The Oaklanders had no answer for the Waves’ balanced attack – five of their 11 players scored double-digits, with two more picking up 9, and sophomore guard Yonatan Levy had a double-double thanks to 16 points and 11 boards – but Pepperdine just couldn’t seem to stop Kalejaiye from scoring.
He scored his 38 on 13-22 shooting, with 12 of his makes coming as threes. He didn’t shoot any free throws, and made just the one 2-point basket in four attempts. That was also about it: he didn’t drop any dimes, had no blocks nor steals but did pick up a single offensive rebound in his 37 minutes. A singularly focused effort, but also over three times as many points as any of his teammates managed against Pepperdine.
It wasn’t “just” 38 points, however. Those dozen threes are also the most anyone has ever made in the 53 years that Pepperdine’s Firestone Fieldhouse has been their home – the previous record was 9 on 18 attempts – and in the final season for that venue, too.
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