Last Night in College Basketball: Ranked Upsets, Bubble Wins and Miami (OH)

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. Iowa upsets Nebraska It was a night full of upsets across men’s college basketball. Sure, a few favorites won, like Michigan, Michigan State and Florida — but by and large it was a very bad night to be the expected winner. Nebraska, for instance, might have lost by just five points to Iowa, but the Huskers were completely outplayed. The Hawkeyes, like Nebraska, struggled to shoot: Iowa was at just 33% for the game, and Nebraska somehow shot better at 41%. However, Iowa hit an additional 3 and sank 6 more free throws by going 17-for-18 at the stripe, compared to Nebraska’s 11-for-14. The Hawkeyes dominated the boards, with 37 rebounds to Nebraska’s 24, which allowed for second-chance opportunities on a night where first shots weren’t falling. Both teams forced 12 turnovers, but Iowa converted them into 13 points to Nebraska’s 3, and the result was that the Huskers spent most of the game unable to stay even or ahead of the Hawkeyes. The real difference, though, was that Nebraska could not get anyone to step up for it in the way that Bennett Stirtz did for Iowa. The senior guard scored a game-high 25 points with a pair of rebounds, assists, steals and blocks each, while going a perfect 7-for-7 from the line. He played all 40 minutes, which Iowa needed him to do if it was going to see through its road upset of Nebraska. [Meet Bennett Stirtz: 5 Things to Know About the Iowa Guard] The Huskers topped out with a 13-point performance from junior forward Pryce Sandfort — who set the single-season record for 3s at Nebraska with his 90th — and just three players sank a 3 with the other four that played minutes going a combined 0-for-11 from beyond the arc. Nebraska’s shooting was so off that, even though Iowa didn’t score a basket for the final 4:59 of the game, the Huskers still lost. McMahon’s 39 put Ole Miss over Tennessee What a rough stretch for No. 21 Tennessee, in and out of SEC play. January ended with a postponed matchup against Ole Miss due to the blizzard and frigid temps that enveloped the eastern United States, and an upset loss against Mississippi State. UConn kicked off February by kicking Tennessee while it was down, then South Carolina beat the Lady Vols by 43 points. A dominant W against Missouri would follow for Tennessee, but then it fell short against Texas and on Tuesday had to squeeze in a rescheduled game against No. 17 Ole Miss on the road before it takes on Texas A&M at home. While the Lady Vols have won 9 of the last 10 against Ole Miss, that did not happen this time. And it’s thanks to Cotie McMahon. The senior forward came into the game needing a single point to become the fourth-ever Ole Miss player with 2,000 career points; she dropped a career-best 39 on 12-for-22 shooting while hitting 14 of 18 from the line, and added 10 rebounds for the double-double as well as 5 assists and 2 steals. Tennessee wasn’t crushed like it had been against the Huskies or the Gamecocks here, which is what truly made McMahon the difference. Even with all that, the Lady Vols lost 94-81 — a standard performance out of McMahon, who is averaging 20.5 points per game even after Tuesday’s outburst, could have meant a Tennessee victory. The Lady Vols couldn’t stop her, however, and while their own star Talaysia Cooper had a hell of a game, too — the junior guard dropped a season-high of 30 points — too many other Rebels produced for it to matter. Senior forward Latasha Lattimore recorded her fourth double-double in a row with 14 points and 12 rebounds, while senior forward Christeen Iwuala had 16 points on 5-for-7 shooting along with 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals. Tennessee, which was undefeated in SEC play just a few weeks ago, is now 8-4 and has slipped into a three-way tie for fourth, pushing it out of double-bye territory for next month’s conference tournament: Ole Miss is also 8-4, and has the head-to-head tiebreaker. Arizona State beats Texas Tech, Toppin goes down Out of all the upsets that occurred on Tuesday, No. 13 Texas Tech suffered the worst one. Not only did Arizona State — under .500 in Big 12 games — beat them 72-67, but the Red Raiders now have to concern themselves with the health of star forward JT Toppin. The junior suffered an apparent leg injury on a drive to the basket with 6:03 remaining in the game, and clutched his right knee on the ground until being removed. Toppin had played 32 minutes to that point and scored 20 points with 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 4 blocks. It’s unclear what the extent of the injury is at this point, but Texas Tech losing without its star there for the duration of this matchup is a reminder of just how important the player-of-the-year candidate is to the Red Raiders’ success. Arizona State didn’t win this game just because Toppin was hurt, however. It was leading after the first half, and four different players scored at least 11 points, with senior guard Maurice Odum leading all scorers with 23. All of the Sun Devils’ starters had between 2 and 6 rebounds, and the team as a whole turned the ball over just 9 times compared to Texas Tech’s 17. The outcome might have been different if Toppin had played the remaining six minutes, but the Red Raiders also allowed Arizona State to convert turnovers into 21 points, 15 more than Texas Tech managed, and without a major advantage in rebounds or the paint to compensate for that, either. Miami (OH) is still undefeated One ranked team to avoid losing on Tuesday was No. 22 Miami (OH), which is even more meaningful since the RedHawks are undefeated. They took down UMass, 86-77, to improve to 26-0 on the season — each additional win adds to the longest-ever MAC winning streak, in addition to Miami (OH)’s own program record. Senior guard Peter Suder led all scorers with 23 points on 7-for-12 shooting, but he also got plenty of help from sophomore guard Luke Skaljac (16 points, 7 assists), junior guard Eian Elmer (11 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals) and junior forward Almar Atlason (13 points and 3 rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench). The RedHawks shot 50% from the field and took advantage of 26 fouls by the Minutemen to sink 24 free throws, while hitting 10 shots from deep, too. Miami (OH)’s defense did not play nearly as well as its offense — UMass shot 51% with 10 3s of its own — but did limit fouling such that it was still a meaningfully different performance from that of the Minutemen. Miami (OH) is the lone undefeated team left in men’s Division I college basketball. Next up is a return home to host Bowling Green, the lone top-150 opponent, as measured by the NCAA Evaluation Tool, left on the regular season schedule. Rice downs South Florida While South Florida isn’t close to taking the top spot in the American from undefeated Rice — the only team with a real chance at that is East Carolina — the Bulls are a legitimate threat to the Owls, in that NET sees the two as close in quality. Maybe South Florida can’t easily rip away the top seed in the American tournament from Rice, but the Bulls could defeat Rice and put fear in it for a rematch next March. That was the thinking, anyway, but the reality did not play out as such. Rice hosted South Florida on Tuesday, and won 79-72. The Bulls did show that they could hang with the Owls, yes, but whether or not they can defeat them is a different question that has yet to be answered. What doesn’t inspire confidence is that Rice is a quality defensive team — 59th in adjusted Defensive Rating for allowing 83.69 points per 100 possessions — and South Florida is powered more by its offense, which is 65th in Offensive Rating. Here, defense won out: Rice limited South Florida to 40% shooting overall and just 2-for-10 from 3. While the Bulls are a barely above-average team from deep, that was well below their standards, as was the overall shooting. Rice, not known for its offense in the way South Florida is, shot 53% overall, with junior guard Victoria Flores leading with 24 points on 7-for-11 shooting. The lone blemish in the Owls’ performance came from their 18 fouls, which sent the Bulls to the line 19 times — South Florida missed just one, which kept it in the game. If Rice can manage to limit open shots while keeping the fouls down should these two meet again next month, the game will not be as close as this one. But even if the fouls happen as part of that defensive plan, they might be worth it considering South Florida can’t rely on shooting 95% from the stripe to save it, either, not when it’s shooting just over 75% there for the season. The win also makes life more difficult for East Carolina, which won on Tuesday against Florida Atlantic and is 12-2 in American play. With just four games left on the schedule, the next against Rice, a South Florida win would have made ending up in first in the American an easier (but not easy) proposition for the Pirates. Now, East Carolina will need a hand elsewhere, from a less talented squad, for that to happen. Wisconsin loses to Ohio State, nothing makes sense No. 24 Wisconsin made it to the poll thanks to two top-10 wins in a row, against Illinois and then Michigan State. So of course, when facing a team in the position Wisconsin found itself in a few weeks ago in Ohio State — a tourney-caliber team believed to be without a chance at the poll — the Badgers lost. And lost by a considerable amount, too: the Buckeyes took this one, 86-69, thanks to a strong first half and the combined powers of senior guard Bruce Thornton and junior forward Devin Royal. The pair scored 52 points — with Thornton leading all scorers with 27 — with 14 rebounds, 11 assists and a block. Two other Buckeyes reached double-digits in scoring, with the foursome alone accounting for more points than Wisconsin managed as a team. The Badgers’ issue was that it couldn’t fully dig itself out of the hole it found itself in after Ohio State went up 12 by halftime, and that was thanks to shooting 7-for-26 from 3. The Buckeyes, meanwhile, were 11-for-21 from beyond the arc and shot 54% from the field. Ohio State didn’t send Wisconsin to the line overly often, but the Badgers didn’t help themselves by shooting just 50% on free throws, either. The loss — in conjunction with Nebraska’s defeat against Iowa and Michigan handling Purdue — makes a difficult Big Ten that much tougher to predict. Michigan at the top seems likely, as it’s two losses and three wins up on second-place Illinois, but Purdue, Nebraska and Michigan State are all 11-4 with room for just two of them to get a double-bye in the Big Ten tournament, while Wisconsin is just outside that group at 10-5 with Iowa behind it at 9-6, tied with Ohio State and UCLA, which lost to Michigan State on Tuesday: as things stand now, all the 9-6 teams get a single tourney bye, but Indiana (8-7) and USC (7-7) loom just close enough that it isn’t a given, either. Especially with how the season has gone for Big Ten teams in general of late — especially especially the favored ones. Three other ranked teams go down Nebraska, Texas Tech and Wisconsin weren’t alone at the upset party. North Carolina, Saint Louis and Louisville all got beat, too, and all by unranked opponents just like the rest. No. 16 North Carolina faced off against NC State and was hammered. UNC shot just 32% — including 15% from beyond the arc in 33 attempts — resulting in 58 points. The Wolfpack had no such issues, and scored 82 points while sinking nearly twice as many 3s in 13 fewer attempts. The 24-point margin of victory was NC State’s largest since 1962, and also put another game of distance in between the two teams in the ACC standings, where the Tar Heels are still tied with Louisville for sixth. “Still” tied, because the Cardinals, as mentioned, were upset as well. No. 21 Louisville faced off against SMU, which was ranked for a single week in the first poll of the new year, and lost, 95-85. Unlike with North Carolina, Louisville had no trouble scoring here, but even more of an issue keeping its opponent from doing the same. SMU shot 58% and forced 17 turnovers while keeping control of the paint — 46 of its 95 points were scored there. The Mustangs survived a 29-point game from Player of the Week Mikel Brown Jr. through the trio of Jaron Pierre Jr., Boopie Miller and Corey Washington: the threesome scored 25, 23 and 18 points, with senior guards Pierre and Miller chipping in 7 rebounds and 9 rebounds, respectively. Last up is No. 18 Saint Louis, which came into Rhode Island with an 18-game win streak. That streak is now over after losing 81-76 to the Rams. Turnovers were the difference here: Saint Louis shot 44% overall and sank 8 3s for 38% deep shooting, as well as 20 of 26 free throws. The Billikens even stole the ball 11 times and forced the Rams to make 14 turnovers overall. However, Rhode Island was far better at converting the turnovers it forced into points: the Rams turned Saint Louis’ 18 turnovers into 28 points, twice as many as the Billikens managed to get. It’s not a coincidence that Rhode Island won by 5 points, or Saint Louis lost by 5, however you want to distribute the credit. Also not helping Saint Louis is that junior guard Jonah Hinton matched Rhode Island’s program record with 9 treys and scored a game-high 29. Continually fouling senior guard Myles Corey ended up being a mistake, as he sank all 11 of his free-throw attempts. How big a win was this for Rhode Island? Well, it moved up 17 spots in the NET rankings, from 137 to 120, and picked up its second Quad 1 win in as many chances. Saint Louis, meanwhile, dropped from 17 to 22 in what was a Quad 2 loss for the Billikens. Michigan trumps Purdue The No. 1 Wolverines took on the No. 7 Boilermakers at Purdue, and the result was Michigan’s 25th win of the year, 91-80. The game is more of a wakeup call for Purdue than it is a massive W for the Wolverines, given it exposed real issues the Boilermakers have and very well could continue to have, as FOX Sports’ Michael Cohen explained in his 4 Takeaways from the game (which also go into far more detail on the matchup, its result and what it all means). Michigan is now 10-0 in Quad 1 games, making it the lone team in men’s Division I basketball with that many matchups in that bucket that is also undefeated in them — Purdue, as a counterexample, is 8-5 in its own, while Duke is 10-2. The Wolverines aren’t just beating anyone, either: yes, its Big Ten schedule has not been as difficult as some others in the conference, but the overall schedule? Michigan has faced the second-most-difficult of any Division I men’s college basketball team this season, per NET. There is a reason this is the No. 1 team in the nation, and Purdue can probably tell you all about why that is this morning.