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.
BYU storms back for impressive W
BYU, improbably, needed just two points to win. They also could have just forced overtime and tried again there if they couldn’t manage to make a two — the most difficult part of coming back at all, after trailing by 21 points at halftime and as much as 22 overall, had already been taken care of. Instead of settling, though, BYU’s sophomore guard Robert Wright III launched a deep three that didn’t leave his hand until there was a mere one second left on the game clock…
…and banked it in for the win.
It was 43-22 Clemson at halftime, and BYU ended up winning 67-64 in regulation. What a sentence that is, and you are only reading it now because of Wright’s incredible shot, but also because of his teammate, freshman forward AJ Dybantsa. While Wright sank the final shot and scored 17 on the night, it was Dybantsa that powered BYU in in the second half: the Cougars scored 45 second-half points, and Dybantsa either scored or assisted in the scoring of 34 of those. His final line: 28 points on 9-for-17 shooting, a game-high 9 rebounds and 6 assists. Sure, 28 points isn’t a life-shattering total, but BYU scored 67 of them as a team — contributing to 42% of your team’s scoring before you even count the assists is a night.
BYU is now 8-1, with their only loss coming against No. 5 UConn in another game where they nearly came back to win after a rough first half. Dybantsa’s explosive second half was at the center of that surge, too. Remembering that he’s just a freshman makes his season all the more impressive: the 6-foot-9 forward is averaging 20.3 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3 assists per game while shooting 54% overall.
Oh, and
BYU senior forward Keba Keita broke the rim with a dunk.
Someone had to come out there with a ladder and and a wrench to readjust the thing after the slam. And then Keita tried to do it again later on, too.
Why double-double when you can triple-double?
Baylor’s Jana Van Gytenbeek did not have a double-double in her career before Monday. Technically, she still doesn’t — not after notching her first-ever triple-double instead. In a 90-36 win over Alabama State, the senior guard scored 10 points on 3-for-5 shooting that included a pair of 3-pointers, pulled down 10 rebounds and reached a new career-high with 13 assists. She scored all 10 of those points in the first half, too, and then it was dimes and boards the rest of the way.
Van Gytenbeek wasn’t the only Bear with a big game, either. Sophomore guard Taliah Scott played for all of 24 minutes in the rout, but she still reached 30 points thanks to 7-for-11 shooting — including 5-for-7 from beyond the arc — and a perfect 11-for-11 from the line. Scott also had 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal for good measure, and those 30 points were tied for the most from anyone in women’s D-I ball on Tuesday.
No. 13 Baylor is now 10-1 on the season, with their only loss coming against current No. 11 Iowa.
Wilkerson goes off for record 44 points
Your scoring leader for the night went all-out: Indiana’s Lamar Wilkerson dropped 44 points on Penn State, and did so thanks to a 10-for-15 night on 3-pointers. Penn State sank 5 threes as a team — Indiana had 17, with comfortably more than half coming out of the hand of their senior guard, who set a program record with his performance.
What makes Wilkerson’s career-high performance that much more jaw-dropping is that he played a mere 24 minutes — this wasn’t a game-long effort where he kept at it and eventually got to 44 points. He played a little over half of regulation in a 113-72 blowout, and his shooting was a significant part of why it was a blowout to begin with. A 16-for-22 shooting night overall that also featured 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals on top of all of that scoring. Just an incredible 24 minutes of basketball there from Wilkerson.
Indiana is now 8-2 overall, and 1-1 in Big Ten play after this W over Penn State.
Michigan wins sixth-straight game by at least 25 points
This one clip is a pretty good summation of No. 2 Michigan vs. Villanova, which turned into an 89-61 dub for the Wolverines:
And this clip? It explains a… well, not a problem. But a pretty understandable position.
The NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, agrees with coach Dusty May’s claim that his team should be No. 1 in the poll: Villanova might not have been a ranked team, but they entered play against Michigan as the 37th team by NET, which means of the Wolverine’s nine wins, five have come against Quad 1 opponents. Meaning, against the toughest competition Division I has to offer, in terms of how good the team is, the quality of their wins and the difficulty of the venue the game is played in, all elements rated by the NET system.
Michigan was already the top team by NET ranking before adding Villanova to their résumé, and while they were No. 2 in this week’s AP poll, they also had 19 first-place votes compared to Arizona’s 33 — Michigan might not have to wait to be ranked at the top of both lists, is the thing, not if they keep playing like they have.
Big night for Brodnex
Senior guard Lavell Brodnex is getting his first real shot at playing time in D-I this year for Louisiana-Monroe. In the 2021-2022 season, he was playing ball in juco, then in 2022-2023, he appeared in just four games for Wagner before heading to Cameron to play Division II ball for the next two seasons. Now, back in D-I with UL-Monroe, he’s averaging 28 minutes per game and scoring 13 points per game while averaging 9.1 rebounds per.
On Tuesday against Arkansas-Baptist, Brodnex led all of Division I with 18 rebounds, and added 22 points on top of that. The rebounds are a career-best, but the points are not: Brodnex scored 23 points — with 11 rebounds — in his previous game, against Stephen F. Austin. This is his third double-double of the young season, which is pretty impressive for a guy who left to go play basketball for a D-II school for a couple of years. He clearly learned something in his time away, much to UL-Monroe’s current benefit.
UConn wins battle of recent champs
The last three men’s college basketball champions are Florida and UConn. And on Tuesday night, in the Jimmy V Classic, the two faced off against each other. Neither is the top team in the country at the moment, but the Huskies are ranked No. 5 in the poll, while the Gators are No. 18.
Both teams took turns being in control, with UConn going out to an early lead before Florida opened up a 7-point advantage with 10:31 left in the first half. The Huskies would end the first half up 39-32, however, and that cushion helped them survive in the second. Florida actually took the lead again with a Thomas Haugh 3-pointer with 11:53 to go in the second, 49-46, before pushing that to 51-48.
UConn, despite being outscored overall in the second half 41-38, still had that 4-point advantage from the first, and that ended up being the difference: the Huskies would defeat the Gators, 77-73.
That’s UConn’s fourth win against a ranked team this season, and their fourth win (and fifth game) against a Quad 1 opponent in what’s been a tough early schedule. The Gators can’t be criticized too hard for losing to the No. 5 team in the country, but they are also No. 18, just 5-4 on the season and have lost three of their four games against Quad 1 opponents — the defending champions might not be what they were in the spring, and not just because they have already matched last season’s loss total for the year.
Nicastro stars again
Less than a week ago, Western Illinois’ combo forward-guard Mia Nicastro scored 32 points and pulled down 18 rebounds. On Tuesday, she had another big game, dropping 24 points and picking up 14 boards — to go along with 3 steals and 3 blocks — against Columbia College.
She’s leading the Ohio Valley Conference in points and rebounds per game, at 24.4 and 10.6, respectively, and that first figure is good enough for fifth in Division I, to boot. Now, it should be pointed out that Western Illinois has faced three Division II teams so far this year, so have just five D-I games on their résumé to this point. They have also gone 4-1 in those games, though, and don’t have any other D-II opponents coming, so we should have a sense of just how good they — and Nicastro — are before long.
Watts leads the way with 30
Tied with Taliah Scott for the most points in women’s D-I ball on Tuesday was Denver’s Coryn Watts, who, by Game Score, had the even better outing. In addition to her 30 points on 12-for-17 shooting, the sophomore guard pulled down 3 rebounds, dropped 5 dimes and stole the ball 5 times in 32 minutes.
Watts is scoring 20.1 points per game, good for second in The Summit League, and her 2.4 steals per game lead the conference.
Ohio State lost. However!
While Ohio State lost to No. 13 Illinois, they made it real close. The Fighting Illini won, 88-80, and it was that close because senior guard Bruce Thornton had himself a game for the Buckeyes. Thornton played all 40 minutes for Ohio State, and scored 34 points with 6 rebounds, 6 assists and a pair of steals.
Thornton had a ton of help, too — this wasn’t a case of one player single-handedly bringing a team to the brink of victory. Four of Ohio State’s starters scored at least 11 points, but the problem was the bench. In a combined 40 minutes of play, they took just four shots and scored 2 points while pulling in 2 rebounds.
That was the difference, one that can be seen pretty easily when you see Illinois got 15 points from their bench in a game decided by just 8 of them, never mind that their bench also picked up a dozen rebounds.
Still! Ohio State is unranked, but has graded out favorably in early NET rankings. They are a quality team that lost a close game to an even better one.
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