Last Night in College Basketball: New No. 2 Houston Was Already Upset

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. Iowa State takes down Houston Houston wasn’t even the new No. 2 team in men’s college basketball for a day before it was upset. Hell, the Cougars weren’t even No. 2 for 12 hours before No. 6 Iowa State delivered a loss that will likely shake up poll up once more less than a week from now. Former No. 1 Arizona didn’t receive a single first-place vote this week after a pair of losses, and Michigan took over for its first No. 1 spot in 13 years in its wake — and nearly unanimous, too, if not for a single vote that went to Houston. Whoops. Iowa State went into halftime up, 43-40, but with 7:09 left in the game it was Houston on top, 63-53, thanks to a strong start to the second half and a 25-footer from freshman guard Kingston Flemings. The Cyclones would then go on a 10-point run to tie things up until the Cougars finally scored with 3:21 remaining, courtesy a layup from freshman forward Chris Cenac Jr. Iowa State would answer with a Jamarian Batemon 3-pointer to go ahead 66-65, which Houston quickly responded to with a Flemings’ pull-up jumper with 1:49 to go — that would be Houston’s final lead, and bucket, of the game. Senior guard Nate Heise drained a 3 with 1:17 to go to put the Cyclones ahead 69-67, and then Houston’s own senior guard, Emanuel Sharp, would miss a 3, and the Cougars would turn the ball over on a shot clock violation. The game didn’t stop there, however, not with a whole 43 seconds left. Joseph Tugler would block a shot from Joshua Jefferson and Cenac recovered, leading to a Houston timeout with 19 seconds left. The Cougars would bring the ball down court, and Cenac would shoot from 10 feet out to try to tie the game at 69 — he missed, and Iowa State got the rebound and then immediately picked up a foul and another on the rebound from the missed free throw. Time expired before Houston could do anything with the rebound from another miss, and Iowa State had completed the comeback win. The Big 12 is a mess after the past week. Two Arizona losses after being undefeated prior to this put Houston in first, and then the Cougars lost their first matchup as the No. 2 team — they are still in the first, but now just half-a-game up on the Wildcats, and one up on Iowa State. Kansas and Texas Tech — which both beat Arizona! — are hanging out tied for fourth at 9-3, which is a problem since just the top four teams get a double-bye in the conference tournament. Hey, no one said it being a mess was a bad thing — instead, it’s created a lot of intrigue down the stretch here. Iowa, Heiden take down Nebraska Things have been rough for Iowa of late. Losing senior guard Taylor McCabe for the year to a torn ACL — and, as was discovered during surgery, also a torn meniscus — was a blow, and that it happened during a difficult stretch of schedule for the Hawkeyes didn’t help matters, either. McCabe tore her ACL against now-No. 10 Ohio State, then USC — unranked, yes, but currently 21st in the NCAA Evaluation Tool — No. 2 UCLA, now-No. 23 Minnesota and then-No. 25 Washington were next up. Iowa hung on against the Buckeyes, but lost to an unranked but still dangerous Trojans team, as well as dominant UCLA and surging Minnesota. The Hawkeyes recovered to win against the Huskies and knock them from the poll, however, and on Monday came up against yet another team that isn’t ranked but was 25th in NET in Nebraska. Like with Washington, Iowa was on its game here, and would take down the Huskers on the road, 80-67. The Hawkeyes had a balanced attack, with sophomore guards Taylor Stremlow and Chazadi Wright providing 31 combined points on 11-for-15 shooting, and Wright adding 4 rebounds and a game-high 7 assists. Freshman guard Journey Houston added another 10 points off the bench in 19 minutes along with 4 rebounds, an assist and 2 steals, and senior forward Hannah Stuelke missed double-digits in scoring with 9 points — all on 3s — but did add 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals for a very thorough day besides. The star of the show, though, was center Ava Heiden. The 6-foot-4 sophomore had a game- and career-high 27 points on an excellent 12-for-15 shooting, and logged a double-double thanks to leading everyone in rebounds as well with 11. Heiden had 3 blocks, too, and snuck in 3 assists and a steal in her 32 minutes alongside the rest of that production. Just a fantastic showing from the sophomore, who was the main reason that the Hawkeyes shot 60% against Nebraska — that level of efficiency helped make up for the 20 turnovers and the Huskers blocking 5 shots as a team. Iowa is now 11-3 in Big Ten play, tied with Ohio State for third in the conference behind UCLA and No. 6 Michigan. That’s a remarkable place to be considering the Hawkeyes lost McCabe and then had to get through an absolute Big Ten gauntlet amid the injury. There is still more challenge to be had, however: Purdue is on the bubble, Michigan has been fantastic, Illinois is 32nd in NET and while Wisconsin is the weakest opponent left for the Hawkeyes on the schedule, the Badgers are still a top-90 team. Iowa is going to have to earn that double-bye, especially with Minnesota coming up from behind to try to take one of those spots. Duke wrecks Syracuse Syracuse has been on the bubble — is still on it, albeit barely — but getting a spot in March Madness just got that much more difficult for the Orange on Monday. That’s because No. 3 Duke crushed them, 101-64, despite it being a game where the two starters who played the most logged 26 minutes. Freshman forward Cameron Boozer managed a 22-point, 12-rebound double-double in 22 minutes, while sophomore guard Isaiah Evans had 21 points of his own in 26. The bench provided 39 points in 79 minutes, while Duke shot a season-best 62% from the field while outrebounding Syracuse and forcing nearly three times as many turnovers as the Blue Devils committed, largely on the back of 10 steals — 7 of which came from the bench. The defense did more than steal the ball, though, as the Orange shot 41% overall and got to the line just 8 times. This was a disciplined effort, and now Syracuse is 1-7 in its Quad 1 games: the Orange have lost to Duke, as well as Houston, Kansas, Iowa State, NC State, North Carolina and Virginia — the lone Quad 1 victory for the Orange came against Tennessee. While Duke is atop the ACC at 13-1, Syracuse has fallen to 11th, which would put it in the first round of the conference tourney where seeds 10-15 play each other to narrow the field of what’s a huge, five-round tournament. That’s a long road for anyone, never mind a team on the bubble. Turnovers too much for Utah against Oklahoma State Oklahoma State’s offense didn’t fully wake up until the second half, but it almost didn’t have to, not with the way its defense was handling Utah. The Utes turned the ball over 24 times compared to the Cowgirls’ 9 times, and Oklahoma State converted those turnovers into 26 points. As the Cowgirls’ offense got going, though, it became even more obvious that Utah wasn’t making a comeback here without a miracle: the final score might have been just 73-55, but you can attribute the gap narrowing that much to a 24-point fourth quarter for the Utes, who were comparatively unchallenged defensively as time wound down. The outcome was all but predetermined after Oklahoma State outscored Utah 24-8 in the third quarter while already ahead, and even while the defense slacked in the fourth, the offense still generated 20 points of its own to mostly counter Utah’s surge. Five Cowgirls scored between 10 and 17 points, and ball movement was working in their favor with six different players picking up an assist. All but one of the eight players that picked up minutes had at least a steal — junior guard Stailee Heard led with 3, and three other players had 2. Utah was only in it at the half because Oklahoma State’s shots weren’t quite falling as needed yet, but the second half was a different story where the Cowgirls scored 44 points — again, Utah had 55 total. The Big 12 might not have a dominant team in it in the way the SEC or Big Ten do — No. 12 TCU is its highest-ranked one — but there is serious depth here. Four of its teams are in the poll this week, with No. 15 Baylor, No. 19 West Virginia and No. 20 Texas Tech joining TCU, and NET has Oklahoma State ahead of the Bears and Lady Raiders in its own rankings. Iowa State might be missing one of its top players in Addy Brown, but it still ranks 33rd in NET, while Colorado, Arizona State, Kansas, Utah, Kansas State and BYU are all in the top-60. That’s a dozen teams that are all reasonably March Madness possibilities as things stand right now. A 10-steal night Duke had 10 steals as a team on Monday, and that worked out pretty well for the Blue Devils. You know who else had 10 steals last night? Michaela Bogans. The Morgan State sophomore guard was a menace against South Carolina State on Monday, picking up 10 of the Lady Bears’ 17 steals on a night where she also scored 10 points, grabbed 4 rebounds and dished out 5 assists. A double-double that involves steals is a beautiful thing, you know. What’s the real surprise here is that Bogans has never shown off this kind of thievery before. Her previous career-high was 6 steals, but she topped out at 4 as a freshman and even after a 10-steal performance is averaging just 1.4 per game this season. South Carolina State is one of the very bottom-tier teams by NET this year, however, coming in at 357 of 363, so Bogans took the opportunity given her and played aggressive defense that resulted in a new career-best mark. What happened in Virginia last night?? Richmond visited George Mason on Monday, and something weird happened: both teams completely forgot how to shoot. Richmond has the 28th-best Offensive Rating in Division I women’s basketball thanks to scoring 110.83 points per 100 possessions, and while George Mason is nowhere near that, it’s still at 96.84, ranked 103rd. George Mason is a top-50 defensive team at 82.47 points per 100 possessions allowed, and Richmond is nothing to dismiss, either, at 87.14, good for 78th. And yet, it was the defenses that completely took over on Monday — both of them. George Mason scored 46 points on 29% shooting from the field, 8-for-24 from 3 and 2-for-6 from the line. George Mason won. Richmond was somehow worse, shooting 27% overall and 25% from 3-point range, with the game decided almost entirely because of second-chance points. The Patriots had 20 offensive boards and outrebounded the Spiders overall 47 to 36, and it gave George Mason more chances. Sometimes more chances to miss, sure, but also the opportunity to shoot 62 times to Richmond’s 49. When nothing is falling at all, volume is the only solution, and the Patriots provided that if nothing else. What’s especially wild about all of this is that Richmond isn’t some random team: even after this loss and scoring all of 37 points, the Spiders are 39th in NET and, as noted, have a legitimately productive offense that is talented enough to make some noise in March. It’s 12-2 in the Atlantic 10, in second behind 14-0 Rhode Island, and is 22-5 overall, so it’s not like the Spiders are entirely a product of their conference. And George Mason is also 12-2, while sitting in and around the bubble basically since everyone started noting which teams deserved that designation. What an oddity of a game that both teams have to hope remains a unique one, to boot.