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.
Auburn wins at the buzzer! Or not.
Just a brutal game for Auburn. The Tigers were up 47-37 at halftime over Texas A&M, after finishing the first half on a 9-0 run and in spite of being down 8 earlier. With 8:42 to go in the second half, the Aggies not just caught up despite being down 16 at one point, but went ahead on a 3-pointer by junior guard Pop Isaacs, who was huge off the bench with 21 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists and a block in 29 minutes.
A&M would end up building a 12-point lead amid this collapse, but the Tigers wouldn’t give up. In fact, over the last 3:51 of the game, Auburn outscored Texas A&M 15-5, with senior forward Keyshawn Hall scoring 10 of his game-high 32 points in those final minutes, and a defensive rebound with less than a second left on the clock to give Auburn its last chance to win, as well.
It was very nearly an 18-5 last-ditch run to win the game, too, but the Tigers were a fraction of a second shy of making that happen. Observe tragedy:
Auburn had 0.6 seconds to inbound the ball and fire off what would have to be a three, since there wasn’t enough time to get close enough for the two that would send the game to overtime. And the Tigers got close, too: close enough for the announcers to think this attempt was good, close enough for the court to be stormed and for the party lights to go on in celebration. The make was overturned on review, however, as senior forward KeShawn Murphy was almost imperceptibly late in letting go of what otherwise would have been a perfect final play.
The Tigers are now 9-6 overall and 0-2 to open SEC play, while the Aggies are 12-3 and the reverse.
Flemings takes over for Houston in ranked win
There was ranked-ranked action in Texas on Tuesday, with No. 14 Texas Tech visiting No. 7 Houston.The two were evenly matched in a number of ways and countering each other in the ones where the Red Raiders and Cougars weren’t. Texas Tech hit more threes, but Houston had more free throws and forced more turnovers while converting more of those into points. The largest lead either team could muster was 7, courtesy Houston, but Texas Tech was up by 6 at one point, too.
The second half began tied at 31, and was just about as close as the first with Houston ending up on top in that period, 38-34. The difference was freshman guard Kingston Flemings, who scored 15 of his game-high 23 points in the second half, including 9 in the final two minutes of the game. His shot was a little off in the first half, too — 4-for-11 — but he adjusted and went 5-for-8 from the field in the second, one of which was the dagger that put Houston up 66-62 with 30 seconds to go.
This performance from Flemings was necessary, as Houston’s bench scored — are you sitting down? — zero points in the entire game. The bench didn’t play that much, to be fair, totaling 26 minutes as a unit, but outside of allowing the starters to catch their breath, their total contribution amounted to 3 rebounds and one steal and block a piece. Every single point was scored by the starters, which makes Flemings’ second-half surge that much more important to the W.
Texas Tech leaned on its own starters just as much, as its bench played for all of 18 minutes, but did score 2 and add 4 rebounds in that short time. Junior forward JT Toppin had 18 points, 11 rebounds, an assist and steal each and a Division I-leading 5 blocks in the loss, and he got plenty of help from freshman guard Jaylen Petty (20/3/2), but the rest of the starters shot a combined 7-for-30, or 23%, for the game. That the end result was as close as it was is a credit to Toppin and Petty, and also a wonder, but that’s Houston’s defense: the Cougars are holding opponents to 39.3% shooting in 2025-2026, tied for the 28th-lowest mark in Division I, and keeping opponent 3-point shooting to 29.3%, tied for 31st. Petty was 5-for-9 from deep; the rest of the Red Raiders were 4-for-19, and that was with sophomore guard Christian Anderson hitting a harmless 45-footer as time expired to cut the final score down to 69-65.
Minnesota upsets No. 19 Iowa
Iowa certainly had its chances at the end…
…but just as the problem had been all night, the threes simply weren’t going in. The Hawkeyes shot 7-for-26 from deep, just 27%, which was somehow better than what Minnesota managed at 5-for-20. The difference, though, came in the fouls and turnovers. Iowa committed four more fouls than Minnesota, and the Gophers converted those into 20 points compared to the Hawkeyes’ 13. Iowa committed 22 fouls to Minnesota’s 17, and the timing and clustering of those fouls mattered, too, as the Gophers went to the line 28 times compared to the Hawkeyes’ 13 trips. Minnesota shot just 75% on free throws, but with so many to attempt, it managed to score an additional 11 points from the line that Iowa did not. In a game decided by a single bucket, that’s a massive difference in both opportunity and result.
And yet! Minnesota still nearly lost this game. Up by 14 at one point, and ahead for 91% of the game, Iowa still not only had it within 3 points at the end but got multiple chances to tie things up before the buzzer. “Lucky” is certainly overstating things and takes away from what Minnesota accomplished here, but it’s also not inaccurate to say that this is one of those games where, if things had gone to overtime, Iowa would be written about in a different light this morning. The clock worked against them just as much as Minnesota’s early — and sustained — lead did, and sometimes that’s just how it goes.
Minnesota senior guard Langston Reynolds was easily player of the game for his performance, which included a game-high 22 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and a steal and block each, but the Golden Gophers as a whole showed up, with four of five starters hitting double-digit scoring and the lone one who did not — junior forward Bobby Durkin — still picking up 9 with a rebound and pair of assists to go with it in his 30 minutes.
Nestor crashes the boards, again
North Texas senior forward Megan Nestor is having quite the debut season. After attending the NAIA school Waylan-Baptist for the first three years of her collegiate career, she transferred to the NCAA and Division I women’s basketball for the 2025-2026 campaign. You might remember that earlier this year she introduced herself with the third 30-point, 30-rebound game in the NCAA over the past 45 years, and has kept on rebounding since, including a recent 17-rebound effort just a few weeks back.
Nestor had another 17-rebound game on Tuesday, when the Mean Green took on East Carolina. The 6-foot-3 Nestor logged her seventh double-double of the season in 15 games by adding 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting to all of those boards, and she had an assist, steal and block each, as well.
North Texas won, 87-63, thanks to the performance of Nestor, a second double-double from sophomore guard Chania Price (12 points, 10 rebounds and 2 steals) as well as 24 points from junior guard Aysia Proctor, who went 4-for-7 from beyond the arc for a game-high in both total points and threes.
North Texas is now 2-1 in American Conference play, while Nestor ranks sixth in Division I women’s basketball with 11.8 rebounds per game, fourth in total rebounds and first in both offensive boards and total rebound percentage. She’s picking up just under 25% of all possible rebounds, at 24.9% — the next-highest, and only other player over 24%, is South Carolina’s Madina Okot.
Peterson’s huge night lifts Kansas
We haven’t been able to see much of Kansas’ freshman star Darryn Peterson, and given he’s projected to go early — if not first-overall — in the NBA Draft this year, we’re unlikely to see all that much of him going forward, either, at least at Kansas. He’s made an impact in the six games he has played in, however, most recently on Tuesday when he was one of Division I’s leading scorers: Peterson dropped 32 points on TCU in a game that went to overtime, leading the No. 22 Jayhawks to a narrow Big 12 victory.
The 6-foot-5 guard shot just 8-for-18 from the field and 3-for-8 from deep, but sank 13-of-15 free throws, nearly half of what his entire team would manage in 45 minutes of basketball. He also had half-a-dozen rebounds and a block to his name, and in just 32 minutes — Kansas isn’t about to ride him for 40-plus minutes in an overtime game in January, not after he’s missed so much of the season with leg injuries to this point.
Kansas led at the half, 41-36, but TCU stormed back with a 51-point second. Peterson was fouled on a 3-point attempt with a single second left in the game, and the Jawhawks down by 3: he sank them all to force overtime. There, senior guard Melvin Council Jr. scored 10 of his 18 points to push Kansas to a 104-100 win.
Oregon upsets No. 21 USC
What a tough week for Southern California. USC’s men were crushed by Michigan over the weekend, fell out of the poll because of the severity of the defeat, then followed that up by losing to Michigan State on Monday to give Tom Izzo the 750th win of his career. USC’s women were also blown out over the weekend, only by UCLA, and in their followup — another Big Ten matchup — the No. 21 Trojans were upset by unranked Oregon.
Now, the Ducks are legit: they pushed then-No. 6 Michigan to double overtime just last week, and sit 26th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET ranking, following their W over USC — that’s just a few spots behind USC itself, which is still a good team but is also clearly missing star guard JuJu Watkins as she recovers from a torn ACL. So it’s not as if there is shame in the Trojans losing to the Ducks, but that doesn’t exactly take the sting off of now being 10-4 and already at the back-end of the poll, in addition to this being a conference loss in the extremely competitive Big Ten.
Nor is it a salve for blowing a game that USC was in control of: Oregon was down, 37-21, at halftime, then exploded for 51 second-half points while holding the Trojans to just 8 points in the fourth — a stretch that ended with a 14-0 run by the Ducks, who were down 66-57 when USC scored its final points of the game via a layup from freshman guard Jazzy Davidson… with 4:46 left on the clock. Junior guard Ari Long would hit three consecutive 3-pointers for Oregon to bring it within 3, then tie then go ahead for good over the course of about two minutes, and that was that.
How fitting for Oregon that the game was won on the strength of a 3-pointer barrage on a night where 3-point and Ducks’ legend Sabrina Ionescu was in attendance.
Michigan survives Penn State
This was almost a disaster for Michigan, the No. 2 team in the country in the poll, but only by a single point — the Wolverines are first in NET ranking and the men’s rankings of FOX Sports college basketball analyst Casey Jacobsen. Michigan is also undefeated, and that’s where much of this near-disaster was: the Wolverines defeated Penn State, 74-72, in Happy Valley. And the Nittany Lions nearly came away with a win, too, if not for a missed shot right as time expired.
Michigan’s margin of victory entering this game was 30 points. Penn State, by NET, came into the matchup ranked 132 against Michigan’s top spot. Penn State played high-quality defense here, however, cutting that gap between the two nearly out of the picture entirely: Michigan shot 46%, and 30% on threes, and its team leader in points was sophomore guard L.J. Cason with 14 off the bench.
The Lions couldn’t thrive on the other side of the ball, though: while Michigan’s offense might have sputtered, its defense remained intact. The Wolverines came into the game with the lowest opponent field goal percentage in Division I, and they exited this matchup against Penn State still on top, too: Michigan’s opponents are shooting just 34.6% on the season. Not on threes, mind you, but overall. Michigan’s opponents are scooping up just 43% of possible rebounds, as well, and while Penn State actually managed to outrebound the opposition here, the Lions shot just 35% overall and 27% from deep.
Michigan won a grind-it-out affair thanks to its defense, which, lost in all the 100-point games, is the most terrifying thing about it this season. Penn State might have had the best chance of ending the Wolverines’ undefeated season, but who knows when the next such chance will be for anyone.
Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily!
