Last Night in College Basketball: Arizona is Undefeated No More

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. Kansas beats undefeated Arizona… without Peterson No. 9 Kansas was expected to be a test for No. 1 — and undefeated — Arizona. When word came that star freshman guard Darryn Peterson would be out with flu-like symptoms, though, it was fair to think that maybe that test had just gotten a little bit easier. Peterson, after all, is expected to be one of the first few picks in the NBA Draft this spring, if not the first-overall selection, and while Kansas has been a good basketball team in the games it has played as he recovers from various leg injuries, the Jayhawks are certainly better with him than without. It turns out there was little reason to worry if you were rooting for Kansas, however. Even without Peterson, even with the leading scorer for the night wearing a Wildcats uniform, Kansas defeated Arizona to end its bid at an undefeated season. In a game decided by just 4 points, it won’t be a surprise to learn that the two matched each other in nearly every category. Arizona had 45 rebounds to Kansas’ 41. The two were even in both steals and blocks, and the Wildcats had a couple more assists, as well as scoring one more bucket off of turnovers in two additional tries. Arizona shot 44%, Kansas 41%, and while there was a gap in shooting percentage on 3s, the more honest look at things is the Wildcats going 6-for-15 while the Jayhawks went 5-for-15. There is one spot that the two were not even on at all, though, and it’s why Kansas was able to overcome an 11-point deficit and emerge the winners. Arizona fouled Kansas 17 times, resulting in 25 free throws to its own 14 attempts. While the Wildcats hit just 57% of its shots from the stripe, Kansas was money: the Jayhawks were 21-for-25 from the line, and those additional 13 points were even more than Kansas needed. Of those 21 makes, 15 came in the second half, allowing Kansas to outscore Arizona 40-33 there after cutting the Wildcats’ lead to just 3 entering halftime. Sophomore forward Flory Bidunga and senior guard Melvin Council Jr. both scored 23 points for Kansas, and were a combined 17-for-20 from the line. Bidunga logged a double-double thanks to 10 rebounds, and he had a steal and 3 blocks, as well, while Council had 6 boards, 6 assists and a steal. Freshman forward Bryson Tiller added 18 points with 8 rebounds, 2 assists, a steal and 2 blocks, and it was all just a little too much for Arizona to overcome in the end. Now, Miami (OH) is the lone undefeated team left in Division I men’s basketball — the RedHawks might not have Arizona’s ceiling, but they are No. 23 in the poll and a top-50 team in the NCAA Evaluation Tool. As for Kansas, it’s clear that this is a much more dangerous team than it was earlier in the season, when not having Peterson made life difficult albeit still competitive. If the star freshman is feeling good come March, Kansas could theoretically beat anyone. Vanderbilt beat up on Oklahoma No. 5 Vanderbilt came into this game with its foot on the gas, outscoring No. 10 Oklahoma 31-19 in the first quarter. The Commodores didn’t really slow down from there, dropping 28 and then 26 points in the second and third quarters, before sagging off a bit in the fourth. The damage had already been done by then, however: Vanderbilt scored 102 points in a game in which the bench, playing a combined 48 minutes, didn’t have a single bucket. Nothing from the field, nothing from the line — straight nothing. The one Vanderbilt starter that failed to score in double-digits still managed 9 points in 20 minutes, and senior forward Sacha Washington still had 6 boards and 2 assists to go with those points in that time. Senior guard Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda had the next-lowest point total, with 13: she also had 9 rebounds, an assist, 3 steals and a block. The stars of the show, though, were 5-foot-6 freshman guard Aubrey Galvan, who scored a career-high 30 points on an efficient 10-for-15 shooting, and sophomore guard Mikayla Blakes, who put up 34 points in 36 minutes. Both players contributed outside of their shooting, too, with the pair combining for 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 4 steals and a block, as well. Lost a bit in Oklahoma still scoring 86 points is that Vanderbilt did an excellent job of forcing the Sooners to take tougher shots. Oklahoma shot from beyond the arc 24 times… and sank just a pair of those 3s. It might have shot 47% overall, but with Vanderbilt’s offense burying Oklahoma’s in an early hole, the Sooners needed the big shots to fall in, and they did not. Vanderbilt kept drawing foul after foul, too, which did not help Oklahoma cut the deficit by much. The Dores shot 25-for-31 from the line, as the Sooners clustered their 22 fouls together in a way that ended up ruining their chances of a comeback. Despite scoring twice as many points in the paint as Vandy — 48 to 24 — the Commodores forced 22 turnovers and converted them into 26 points, while also benefiting from foul after foul. This one did not feel nearly as close as the final score suggests it was. Vandy is second in the SEC, a game back of South Carolina and in line for one of the four double-byes for the conference tournament, while Oklahoma has fallen to 5-5 and into a tie for eighth. The win also has Vanderbilt 13-0 at home to start the year, the longest single-season home win streak the program has ever managed St. John’s beat Xavier in OT St. John’s has been on a roll lately. The Red Storm defeated UConn on Friday, granting some legitimacy to their comeback in conference play, and on Monday night Rick Pitino’s squad matched up against Richard Pitino’s Xavier once again, and ended up winning in overtime. That’s 10 wins in a row for St. John’s, who is now No. 17 in the poll: that’s the best showing it’s had since December, when the preseason expectations finally fell away and the team ended up slipping right out of the poll entirely. St. John’s is back now, however, and playing like a team that’s figured out how to gel instead of one that’s a little lost out there. Senior forward Zuby Ejiofor has stepped up in a big way, including against Xavier, where he scored a game-high 25 points on 8-for-11 shooting with 9 more points from the stripe. Ejiofor also had 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and a block in his 40 minutes, and scored 6 of his 25 in overtime — no small thing, since St. John’s had 9 points in the extra period total and Xavier was able to manage just 4 as a team. The Red Storm are tied atop the Big East with UConn at 12-1, with both teams well ahead of third-place, 9-3 Villanova. The two will play a rematch on Feb. 25 that might end up determining which is the top seed in the conference come Big East tournament time. 45 points, 10 3s and a first No. 24 Louisville beat down NC State to the point that it barely needs explaining, but there is reason to look deeper. That reason? The performance of freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr., who scored 45 points with 9 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals in just 30 minutes. Those 45 points were the most of anyone in Division I basketball on Monday, men’s or women’s ball, and also represented not just a career-high for Brown, but also his first game of 30 or more points and tied the program record, too. Brown has fallen under the radar a bit at times thanks to the glut of high-quality freshman in D-I this year, combined with his missing eight games earlier in the season with a lower-back injury. Brown is back now, though, and he is delivering: he’s at 17.3 points per game while averaging 3.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists and just under a steal. He got to 45 points by sinking 10 3-pointers in 16 attempts — he also went 7-for-7 from the line and hit four other shots from the field, but those 3s made up the bulk of it all. Brown is obviously the biggest reason why Louisville got the dub over NC State, but the Cardinals didn’t drop 118 points on the strength of one player: senior guard Ryan Conwell also had a hell of a game, putting up 31 points in 29 minutes on 10-for-14 shooting. He shot 5-for-6 from 3 while pulling down 7 rebounds, leading Louisville in assists with 6, and had a steal and block each, as well. Per OptaSTATS, Brown and Conwell are the only pair of Division I teammates to ever combine for at least 75 points, 15 rebounds and 15 3-pointers in a game, and it’s the first time that Louisville has ever had two 30-point performances in the same game. No wonder NC State lost by 41. Don’t forget about this 41-point game, though Brown led the way with 45, but we somehow got a second 40-point game on Monday despite the limited schedule. Indiana’s Lamar Wilkerson dropped 41 on Oregon in a 92-74 W — yes, more than half the points his opponents managed as a team. The senior guard shot 13-for-20 and 50% on 3-pointers, sinking half-a-dozen of those while going 9-for-11 from the line, too. He had 5 rebounds and 3 assists, too, and was far from alone in his performance: four of Indiana’s starters scored at least 11 points, and while the defense wasn’t particularly strong against the Ducks, it didn’t necessarily need to be with all those baskets. 8 blocks! Southern’s Terrance Dixon Jr. has been on a real heater with blocks lately. While he’s averaging just 1.1 for the season, in conference play he’s just under 2 per game, and over his last five games he has piled up 17 rejections. He had 18 points and 3 blocks against Mississippi Valley State on Jan. 28, 9 points and 3 blocks against Jackson State on Feb. 2, another 18 points and 3 points against Alabama A&M, and then on Monday he drastically increased the blocks. While Dixon managed just 8 points this time around, he had a Division I-leading 8 blocks against Alabama State. What’s wild, too, is that Dixon had every block for the Jaguars — Alabama State managed a pair of blocks, so for whatever reason Dixon was the guy with the magic touch on Monday. And good thing for Southern, too: the Jaguars ended up beating the Hornets, 69-68, on a 3-pointer out of the hands of Fazi Oshodi. The sophomore guard had just 7 points total, but picked up 3 of them with all of 9 seconds left on the clock. Southern is now 7-4 in conference play, and third in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, helping to put the Jaguars in a better position to defend last year’s SWAC tournament win and the automatic bid to March that came with it. Texas wins 40th-straight home game The SEC has been cooking with gas in 2025-2026, and Texas has been a huge part of that. Texas, ranked the No. 4 team in the nation in the latest poll, took on No. 16 Kentucky in a ranked-ranked matchup at home. The result was the Longhorns’ 40th-consecutive win at the Moody Center. Texas’ defense was on full display, as it managed to score just 64 points against the Wildcats, but held them to 53. Rather than senior Rori Harmon or junior Madison Booker leading the way for the Longhorns, it was a couple of sophomores: forward Justice Carlton and guard Jordan Lee. Lee’s shooting wasn’t particularly great — she went 4-for-13 from the field — but she sank a pair of 3s and 3 of 4 from the stripe, giving her 13 points. She also had 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and a block. Carlton was far more efficient, scoring a game-high 17 on 8-for-12 shooting while pulling down 3 boards, picking up 2 steals and blocking a shot. The defense was excellent on both sides, for more reasons than just the points. Kentucky turned the ball over 23 times, while Texas gave it up on 16 occasions. A significant chunk of points for both teams — 35 combined — came off of turnovers, and Texas was able to make up for its lack of ranged offense by scoring 30 points in the paint and winning the battle at the line. A true grind-it-out win. The dub also allowed Texas to keep pace with Vandy in the SEC standings rather than falling further behind. The third-place Longhorns are a game back of the Dores, but remain ahead of both Tennessee and LSU, putting them in a solid position for one of the four double-byes that grant a quarterfinals berth in the SEC tourney next month.