College Basketball Catchup: TTU Upsets Illinois, Duke Goes Down, Halls Erupt

A huge, early ranked-ranked upset. Duke already has a loss on the board thanks to Michigan State. Two different players named Hall went off. Villanova’s night did not go like you’d expect. Here’s what you need to know from yesterday’s slate of college basketball. Tuesday night gave us No. 16 Texas Tech against No. 3 Illinois, but you can bet those rankings are going to look different this time next week. And that’s because the Red Raiders upset Illinois, 84-78, on the strength of a 20-point game from Iona transfer and senior guard Cruz Davis, as well as a double-double off the bench from UCF transfer and senior forward, Jamichael Stillwell. The latter discord 11 points in 26 minutes while pulling down 13 rebounds. The game was won at the line. Illinois actually outshot Texas Tech, sinking 30 field goals on 50% shooting compared to the Red Raiders’ 26 on 40%, and Illinois also made an additional three. Illinois shot just 8-for-19 on free throws, however, while Texas Tech not only shot 26 times from the line, but made 23 of those. More than anything else, that difference in the numbers led to a Red Raiders’ win, in a game they were up for 99% of the runtime. Illinois is now 2-1 with a loss on the road and wins against FDU and Penn, while Texas Tech is 3-0 thanks to a dub in its first major matchup of the season. Fifth-year guard Dallin Hall is in his first season with Utah State, in a collegiate career that saw him play for BYU for three years in the Big 12, then transfer to Virginia and the ACC before shifting to the new-look Pac-12 for his final year of eligibility. Against Utah Tech on Tuesday, Hall had his best-ever game in those five seasons. He secured a career-high in points with 12:38 to go in the second half, and then just kept going: Hall shot 12-for-16 overall — including 7-for-9 from beyond the arc, with the seven makes from deep also a new career-high — and finished with 35, tied for the second-most points in men’s college ball on Tuesday. Hall also had seven assists, five boards and a steal while committing just two fouls, powering Utah State to a 118-86 win in more ways than one. This dub also marked the 400th win of coach Ben Jacobson’s career. New Mexico’s Jake Hall led all scorers, men and women, on Tuesday. The sophomore guard dropped 39 points on Little Rock, but it was not what you would call an efficient performance. Hall took 23 shots and sank 10, good for just 43.5% with eight of those misses coming from three. That inefficiency didn’t hurt the Lobos any, however, as they crushed the now 0-3 Trojans, 94-69. The 39 points are a career-best for Hall, who started 37 games as a freshman for New Mexico a year ago but had reached at least 30 points in just two games to this point. He had a lot of misses, but this was the best game of his still-young career: Hall also had six rebounds and a pair of dimes, and he’s leading the Mountain West in scoring through three games. Elli Guiney scored 32 points for Pepperdine against Cal State Dominguez Hills last night, her first-ever outing with at least 30. The junior guard was a menace, sinking four of five from inside the arc and seven of 10 beyond it, and she added eight boards, four assists, two blocks and a 3-for-3 showing from the line on top of all that. She’s currently the West Coast Conference leader in shooting percentage (64.5%) and effective field goal percentage (79%), which would be a massive shift if it’s the start of something, considering she shot under 47% last season. And yes, Guiney was facing a Division II squad on Tuesday, but it’s worth pointing out that without her performance Pepperdine might have actually been in trouble: the Waves won, but by the score of 83-65. The Toros were surprisingly game here, but so was Guiney. Maybe you know the name Jordan Scott already, but Duke certainly does. Scott, a sophomore forward for No. 5 Michigan State, used his entire 6-foot-8 frame to great effect against the No. 2 Blue Devils on Tuesday in the Champions Classic. While he scored just five points on 2-for-7 shooting, Scott pulled down nine rebounds and became just the 13th player in program history to record six blocks in a single game. The Spartans won, 79-73, and dominated more than that score suggests — a late flurry by Duke cut into the deficit considerably, but the Blue Devils were down 13 with under five minutes left, while Michigan State led for 98% of the game. It was a bit of a surprise performance from Scott in some ways, since he averaged exactly one block per 40 minutes as a freshman as well as 5.9 rebounds, but that was last year: he’s got a season under his belt now, and so far has used that experience to put on a serious defensive showing that’s dropped his defensive rating to 78.6 points per 100 possessions, down from last year’s 103.8. It’s early, sure, but that early number includes this performance against Duke — Scott’s one worth keeping an eye on. Villanova forced Princeton to turn the ball over 20 times on Tuesday, and turned it over itself just eight times. The Wildcats also scored 25 points off turnovers to the Tigers’ seven. If you try to guess at the result of this game based on that information, you will probably be wrong: Villanova lost to Princeton, 81-74, with those turnovers and points scored off of them the only reason the Wildcats were even in the game like they were. Villanova shot just 28-for-70 on the night, a 40% showing. Junior guard Jasmine Bascoe and sophomore guard Kennedy Henry combined for 52 points on 21-for-45 shooting: the rest of Nova managed just 22 points on 7-for-25. Princeton not only shot 52%, but also picked up 30 defensive rebounds to Villanova’s 16 — the difference in turnovers was made up elsewhere, and now the Wildcats are 0-2 to start the season, while the Tigers are 4-0 and already have two wins on the road. A pretty good start for new coach Lauren Gosselin, who received the promotion after Carla Berube went to Northwestern for this season.