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.
Virginia Tech beats Virginia in huge triple-OT upset
Where do you even start with this game? It was the ACC conference play opener for both No. 21 Virginia and its opponent, Virginia Tech. While the Hokies are not ranked, they did come into the game 67th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, which for our intents and purposes means that they are the kind of team with a shot at playing in March.
What we got was a game that was closely fought from the jump: Virginia Tech’s largest lead of the game was its final one, 10, while Virginia led by just 4 at its best. The Cavaliers won the first half, 24-23, and the Hokies responded in kind in the second, 32-31, with freshman center Christian Gurdak hitting a close-range hook shot to tie things up at 55 and send this one to overtime. Gurdak had a monster game: he grabbed the defensive board on the next play from Virginia to keep them from getting another shot at the lead and the win, one of 19 on the day. And more to come from him, too.
There were three overtimes, as these two teams just couldn’t separate from each other in the first two. Gurdak opened the scoring in the first OT, and ended it, too — once again, he had the shot that extended the game and brought it to the second overtime, the authoritative response to Virginia going ahead with just 13 seconds left on the clock.
What happened in the second overtime was nigh unbelievable: Virginia Tech finally started to get some separation, and it was up 77-73 after sophomore guard Ben Hammond — who had 30 points in 42 minutes off the bench — sank a pair of layups with just 7 seconds to go. Senior guard Malik Thomas, who played just 29 minutes despite starting and all the overtime, drained a three while burning just two seconds of clock in the process to bring Virginia to within a point. Virginia then fouled Hammond in a hurry, who hit one free throw to push the lead to 78-76 with 3 seconds left.
It was too much time. Thomas missed his next attempt at a three — he went for the game-winner from deep with so little clock left — but freshman guard Chance Mallory came flying out of nowhere for the tip-in to tie the game at the buzzer.
What a sequence. Two long passes, a three that could not find the mark as intended, and Mallory rushing in like he was always part of a play that was drawn up just like that one to make sure the effort wasn’t wasted. That’s basketball, baby.
Sadly for Virginia, that was their last successful stand. Hammond scored 10 of his game-leading 30 points in that third overtime, which was more on its own than the Cavaliers managed as a team in the same five minutes. Virginia Tech would win, 95-85, upsetting their ranked conference rival and giving themselves that much more of a chance with the selection committee come March, if it comes to that.
As for Virginia, the game never should have gotten to that point. The Cavaliers committed 27 fouls to the Hokies’ 16. They shot just 22% on threes and 36% overall. Just a couple more threes going in, or fewer opportunities for Virginia Tech to keep this thing alive from the line — it sank 28 free throws, which made up nearly 30% of its total points scored — and this game ends very differently, and much sooner. Better luck next time on those notes.
No. 22 Baylor avoids upset with 19-point comeback
Not every ranked team in trouble ended up upset on Wednesday, though. On the women’s side, Baylor was down 19 points to Oklahoma State but managed to come back for the dub, anyway. Oklahoma State might not have been ranked, but it did enter the game 25th in NET: that’s a formidable team, as Baylor figured out in a hurry, but a monster fourth quarter erased the deficit and then some: the Bears put up 29 points in the fourth after not cracking 20 in a single quarter before that, while holding the Cowgirls to a mere 8 points to close things out 77-68.
Sophomore guard Jadyn Wooten put the Cowgirls up 64-54 with 8:01 left in the fourth, and the Bears responded by going on a dominant 18-0 run that lasted until Oklahoma State sank a free throw with 27 seconds to go. Just a huge Big 12 win for Baylor.
You can’t stop Audi Crooks
No. 10 Iowa State’s Audi Crooks scored 35 points on Wednesday against Houston to lead all of Division I, across both women’s and men’s basketball. That would be notable on its own, but it’s also the junior center’s fifth-straight game of at least 30 points: she’s scored 47, 30, 30, 41 and 35 over those games.
And to take it one bit further, Crooks is the first player in 17 years to shoot at least 60% while scoring that much over a five-game stretch. Just a wild run, and it also has her leading all of Division I in points per game, too, at 29.7 — all while shooting 72.5% from the field.
Iowa State, by the way, remains undefeated both in Big 12 play at 2-0 after toppling Houston 80-62, and also overall at 14-0.
Wednesday was about sisters
It was a bad day to face off against a team with sisters on it. No. 19 Ohio State took on Purdue on the road, but having the crowd against them wasn’t enough to slow down Jaloni and Kennedy Cambridge. The latter sibling, a junior guard, led the Buckeyes with 16 points while adding 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and a block to the boxscore in just 23 minutes, while the former scored 14 with 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 steals and 3 blocks. Jaloni Cambridge, a sophomore guard, became one of just five Big Ten women’s players to log at least 5 of each of those categories in a single game this season.
She also had this sick buzzer beater in the first quarter, which led to Ohio State’s highest-scoring quarter of the season, 30.
The Buckeyes would defeat Purdue in this Big Ten matchup, 83-56, courtesy this power duo. Big Ten rival and No. 4 team in the country, UCLA, would then display its own sister power against their own Big Ten opponent, Penn State. Senior center Lauren Betts would score a season-high 25 points in 25 minutes on 11-for-19 shooting, playing as if Penn State’s own tall center, junior Gracie Merkle, was no match for her — to be fair, Merkle, at 6-foot-3 is usually able to use her size to her advantage against opponents. Betts is 6-foot-7, though, and used all that extra length to slow Merkle while also working around whoever challenged her underneath.
Lauren Betts would score her 1,500th career point in this game, just a few more than her sister, Sienna Betts, has managed. Sienna is a freshman who got a late start this year due to injury, however, and she’s doing pretty well for herself off the bench to this point. Against Penn State, the younger Betts — a forward — played 16 minutes and scored 10 points with 2 rebounds and an assist, giving the pair a combined 41 minutes, 35 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists, helping the Bruins take down the Lions, 97-61. Maybe more teams should try to have siblings on them.
Oop!
Not everything went DePaul’s way in a tough Big East matchup against Villanova, but at least it got this alley oop out of senior forward NJ Benson.
DePaul led there, but ended up losing 71-66 to drop to 0-3 in conference play, while Villanova improved to 2-0 and 11-2 overall.
Shorthanded UConn still looked like UConn
Before saying anything about the game itself, you have to see what UConn freshman guard Blanca Quinonez did to end the third quarter.
Stealing an inbounds pass with 1.4 left on the clock, and then firing it in on a reverse underneath? No wonder Geno Auriemma is effusive about her.
Anyway, No. 1 UConn took on Providence in Big East play on Wednesday without starter KK Arnold, who suffered a nose fracture in practice earlier in the week. And while the Friars were able to show more life in the second half and force the Huskies to turn the ball over 21 times, UConn forced 30 turnovers and scored 41 points off of them compared to Providence’s 8 even without the junior guard’s relentless defensive energy. That difference showed up in the final score, with the Huskies winning 90-53 to remain unbeaten, at 5-0 in the Big East and 14-0 overall.
It also marked 13 consecutive games for UConn with at least 20 assists, as well as their 30th win in a row dating back to last season. Of their 14 games, a dozen have been won by at least 26 points. The turnovers were an issue in the sense that they happened, but UConn is otherwise firing on all cylinders entering the new year and full-on conference play.
Miles’ latest triple-double is historic
TCU’s Olivia Miles had yet another triple-double — 14 point, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in 36 minutes against BYU in a 72-48 win — and it put her in some serious company. That was the fifth-year guard’s 10th-career triple-double: she is just the third Division I women’s basketball player with 10 in her career, joining Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu (26) and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark (17), and just the fourth in Division I overall, as BYU’s Kyle Collinsworth (12) remains the only player on the men’s side to manage the feat.
On top of that, it was her fourth triple-double of the season, giving her half of TCU’s triple-doubles ever, and she is now the all-time leader in triple-doubles in a season for a Big 12 player. She also tied Ionescu for the most by a player in Division I in a month, with four — that’s right, all of Miles’ triple-doubles came in December, including a stretch of three in a row where she just missed a record fourth-consecutive triple-double, to boot.
TCU, by the way, is 15-0 and has tied their longest win streak in program history. Miles transferring there has been something else for both of them.
7 blocks for the seven-footer
Charleston and Elon matched up in conference play on Wednesday, and it was the former that came away with the upset W, 85-81. Forward Chol Machot played a huge role in that, with a 15-point, 15-rebound double-double, but on top of that he added a Division I-leading 7 blocks.
The seven-foot, 190-lb. freshman is leading the Coastal Athletic Association in blocks per game at 2.7 — also good for 10th in Division I — while scoring 10.3 points and pulling down 5.9 rebounds per, as well. And he’s doing all of that in just 21.5 minutes per game, too.
Duke let Georgia Tech hang around
You don’t want to nitpick a W too much, but coming off of a meltdown upset loss against Texas Tech in its previous game, Duke defeating Georgia Tech by the score of 85-79 is a little concerning. Georgia Tech is a team that, as it stands, isn’t going to sniff meaningful March basketball, but they hung in there with the current No. 6 team in the country until the end, anyway.
Star freshman forward Cameron Boozer certainly did his part, playing 38 minutes with 26 points and 12 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the year, to which he added 2 assists and steals each. The starters all performed, actually, as they all scored at least 11 points and were the reason that Duke outrebounded Georgia Tech 42 to 28. The bench, though? Duke’s bench provided very little in 47 minutes of play, scoring a combined 6 points with 7 rebounds, 1 assist and 3 steals, the vast majority of which belonged to senior forward Maliq Brown in his 18 minutes.
With the bench providing little in the way of relief — in opposition to Georgia Tech’s, which scored 25 points with 13 rebounds, 4 assists and 5 steals in 78 minutes of work — the game not only stayed uncomfortably close, but saw Georgia Tech within a single point with just 3:17 to go.
Still! A win is a win, and at least Duke fought and came out on top this time, unlike when Texas Tech basically just blitzed them into submission to close out their previous engagement. And hey, the dub marked their 36th in the calendar year, an ACC record, so it was still a solid way to close out 2025.
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