College Basketball Catchup: Indiana-Syracuse, A 20-Rebound Game, Hurley Thoughts

Syracuse and Indiana fought to the end. A 20-rebound, 20-point double-double. A freshman scoring record, and a career-high. It wasn’t a quiet November Monday in college basketball by any means. Here’s what you need to know from yesterday’s slate of college basketball. You know what makes a serious difference in the performance of a guard? A lack of fear. Sure, you might miss a layup. You might get rejected at the basket. You also might get fouled and go to the line, or maybe, just maybe, break through the defense and score despite the odds. Ryan Moesch is a guard for Syracuse, and the Orange freshman stands just six feet tall, per Syracuse’s own numbers. And on Monday night against Indiana, Moesch went right at 7-foot-2 Hoosier center Samet Yigitoglu in the paint. And Moesch came out ahead in that encounter. That kind of aggressiveness, that lack of hesitation, is vital for a guard. There is always going to be someone taller lurking in the paint. Someone who could swat both you and the ball away with a thought. Learning to work around their existence, though? That’s a huge part of the job, and Moesch is showing a willingness to attack early in his collegiate career. The game didn’t go Syracuse’s way in the end, with Indiana winning 83-80. Still, a great effort from Moesch and the Orange against a Big Ten opponent in non-conference play, despite the first loss of Gerry McNamara’s run as Orange coach. Tatum West played just 22 minutes for Northern Colorado on Monday, but she made them count. While taking on NAIA’s Northern New Mexico, the senior forward put on a show: she shot 9-for-12 and hit six of nine free throws, blocked two shots, grabbed a steal and pulled down 20 rebounds to go with her 24 points. That’s a double-double and then some. Of those rebounds, 12 of them were actually offensive boards: given her shooting percentage, it wasn’t her misses she was grabbing, either. She was doing work under the basket for everyone else. West also had two assists — you can see one of those dimes, a real quick-thinking pass back outside, below. Sure, an NAIA opponent is the kind a Division I school like Northern Colorado is going to plow through, but it’s not like West has never performed before. As a junior playing Big Sky ball for Northern Colorado last season, she averaged 11.2 points per game and pulled down 9.1 rebounds while grabbing two steals and nearly 1.5 assists per game. She also shot just under 59% — West is an efficient player who has gotten better every year, and could be taking one more leap as a senior. Jason Crowe Jr. set the freshman rookie scoring record for Missouri on Monday night, while facing SIU Edwardsville. The 6-foot-4 guard shot 11-for-16 overall and 4-for-8 from beyond the arc, to go along with eight makes in nine trips to the line to finish with 34 points. He also grabbed a pair of boards and logged four assists. Through three games, Crowe is averaging 21.7 points with 4.3 assists. It should be noted, though, especially with the small sample, that his worst performance so far came against the toughest opponent Missouri has had: Saint Louis. Still, seven dimes was encouraging, and maybe the shots will fall next time. Petra Božan, a junior transfer from Nebraska to Penn State, did basically one thing on Monday: score. The 6-foot-4 forward has never been much of a rebounder, and on Monday she had just one board to keep that going. What she did have was her shot from three, though: Božan launched six triples and sank five of them, and made every shot from inside the arc to finish with 27 points on 10-for-11 shooting. While this was a career high for Božan — her previous best was 17 in a game last December, coincidentally against Penn State — it wasn’t enough to get the Nittany Lions past Dayton. The The Flyers won, 77-71, and Penn State is now 0-3 on the year. Center Matas Vokietaitis is in his second season with Texas. The seven-foot, 255 pounder has been capable of being a problem underneath for opponents in the past: while he’s not the rebounder you think he would be given his size, he does use it to get himself into position to score against opponents who can’t stop him. He led the SEC in field goal percentage in the 2025-2026 season, shooting just a hair under 62% for the year. Obviously, SEC play hasn’t begun yet, but Vokietaitis has started out hot in 2026-2027. Monday against Grambling was his best outing so far, with nine rebounds, a block, a steal and 26 points on 8-for-12 shooting. The thing to watch the most with him, though, is how often he’s called for fouls. If he can be smarter about not picking up fouls, that’s huge: he led the SEC with 123 of them last season, but has forced just one whistle in two of his three games so far. He’s at 38.2 points per 40 minutes as well as 13.1 rebounds, and while he’s played 22.3 minutes per game in actuality, that’s the kind of leap in performance that can come when you don’t have to worry as much about an extra bump putting you in foul trouble. So, if the fouls are reduced, he can be the monster he’s capable of in the paint — which would be bad news for opposing offenses and defenses. UConn played Wagner on Monday, which isn’t notable on its own: Wagner is a very small private college with around 2,000 total students, known more for its academics than its athletics, and UConn was just in the national championship game once again in the spring. However, the Seahawks been a jumping off point for a number of successful college coaches elsewhere, including but not limited to the Huskies’ current head coach, Dan Hurley, who coached the Seahawks from 2010 to 2012 before making the jump to Rhode Island, his last gig before coming to Connecticut. Hurley spoke on what memories facing off against his former team brought back to the surface for him following Monday’s 83-41 victory by No. 4 UConn, and how they shaped the coach he is now. “I felt like I was coaching the Celtics. I felt like the fate of the free world depended on whether we won or lost games or not.” Dan Hurley, living or dying on every play and game? Hard to believe he’d ever be like that.