Last Night in College Basketball: Oklahoma Wins Close, Vital SEC Showdown

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. Oklahoma won a nail-biter against Georgia There were some ranked-ranked matchups on Thursday, and maybe the best of the bunch was in Georgia. No. 11 Oklahoma was visiting the No. 24 Lady Bulldogs — newly in the poll after upsetting Vanderbilt right after Vandy’s own upset of Texas — and Georgia nearly pulled off another big victory. Instead, the Sooners came away with a key road win in a highly competitive SEC. At first, it looked like this would be all Oklahoma, all the time, as the Sooners were up 22-13 after the first quarter and Georgia did nothing to catch up in the second. The Bulldogs came out of the half looking different, however, and would outscore the Sooners over each of the last two quarters and the second half as a whole. Sophomore forward Mia Woolfolk was at the heart of this attack, as she had 29 points on an efficient 9-for-12 shooting, and just missed a double-double — but still led the Bulldogs — with 9 rebounds. Sophomore guards Trinity Turner and Dani Carnegie added 10 and 14 points, respectively, with Turner getting 6 boards, 5 assists and 2 steals, and Carnegie 6, 2 and 1. The issue was that the rest of the Bulldogs offered little in terms of points or rebounds, and the team as a whole shot a dreadful 2-for-15 from 3. Oklahoma wasn’t much better and shot worse overall, but the Sooners sank three more buckets, and two of them were from beyond the arc — no small thing in a game that ended 71-67. Oklahoma was led by freshman guard Aaliyah Chavez, who had 27 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and a block on a night when star senior center Raegan Beers was limited to 17 minutes on account of having four fouls. It was Chavez’s 9th 20-point game of the season to lead SEC freshman, and her sixth 25-point game is more than every other SEC freshman… in total. Beers was in at the end when Oklahoma needed her, and sank a pair of free throws with 23 seconds left to finally give the Sooners a lead Georgia would have a hard time threatening. With the W, Oklahoma has won three in a row, and is tied with Ole Miss as well as Tennessee for fifth in the SEC, a game back of No. 7 LSU — which came back to win against the No. 17 Rebels last night — for the last double-bye of the conference tournament. Given how stacked the SEC is, being able to skip the first two rounds is huge from both a fatigue and a “lower your chances of losing to an evenly matched team” perspective. The Sooners still have work to do there, however, but with games against spiraling No. 21 Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri left on the schedule, a double-bye remains a real possibility. Texas A&M latest to beat Tennessee Speaking of Tennessee, the Lady Vols have struggled of late, and those struggles continued on Thursday against unranked Texas A&M. The Aggies are a bubble team in the truest sense of the word: 68th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool and, entering play against Tennessee, 47th in Wins Above Bubble with a rating of -0.04. They proved too much for the Lady Vols, though, who continually did not get back on defense and to where they needed to be on play after play, failing to consistently look like a team with a shot at winning the conference. None of the blame on offense belongs to senior forward Janiah Barker, who led all scorers with 29 point on 9-for-13 shooting that included a perfect 5-for-5 from beyond the arc. Barker also grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds for a double-double, dished out an assist and had a pair of blocks and steals each in her 32 minutes. No one else truly stepped up, however, besides senior forward Zee Spearman, who got 14 points off the bench with 5 boards and a block. Junior guard Talaysia Cooper, so vital to the Lady Vols’ attack, had 11 points on 4-for-13 shooting with a single rebound and 4 assists — the three other starters, combined, were outscored by her. The Aggies, though, got a huge night out of senior guard Ny’Ceara Pryor, who had 22 points with 10 assists for a double-double to go with 5 steals. Junior forward Fatmata Janneh had a double-double as well, with 17 points and a game-high 12 boards, but also found time for 4 dimes. Texas A&M shot 56% overall and 11-for-19 from deep in large part because the Lady Vols just kept not being where they needed to be on defense, giving the Aggies open look after open look. What’s most frustrating is that the talent is clearly there: Tennessee just barely lost to No. 4 Texas on Sunday, 65-63, but there have been too many stretches lately of the team failing to look like that one, or the one that defeated Georgia in overtime, or beating Missouri into the ground. And now, the Lady Vols have to take on No. 11 Oklahoma, No. 7 LSU and No. 5 Vanderbilt to close out the regular season while desperately fighting for not just a double-bye, but a bye in general: seeds 4-8 in the SEC get a bye to the second round, and the Lady Vols are in a three-way tie for fifth with Kentucky just one game back. There’s a reason that Tennessee-Oklahoma is one of our games of the week this weekend, and it’s because both teams desperately need this one. UNC survived Virginia Tech in OT Virginia Tech might not be ranked, but it’s no joke: that’s a top-40 team in both NET and WAB, one that is likely tourney-bound unless it suffers a surprising collapse. No. 22 UNC can tell you as much after it took overtime to secure a W against the Hokies. The final was just 66-63 because both teams were on their games defensively. UNC shot just 37%, but held Virginia Tech to 34%. The difference in the end was that the Tar Heels sank a couple more 3-pointers, but the Hokies stayed in it for as long as they did because of converting 17 forced turnovers into 19 points while having control in the paint. The game was close the entire time, not just at the end, as there were 11 lead changes throughout, but Virginia Tech did lead for the majority. North Carolina would catch up, though, going ahead for the first time in the fourth quarter with just 3:53 left on the clock following a layup from sophomore guard Lanie Grant. Hokies’ junior guard Samyha Suffren would hit a layup of her own to tie things at 57 with 24 seconds left, though, and overtime would follow. There, Grant, sophomore guard Elina Aarnisalo and senior forward Nyla Harris would score every point for the Tar Heels — with Harris and Grant also picking up the dimes in the quarter — and UNC would pull ahead for good this time. The win pulls the Tar Heels even with Syracuse for third in the ACC, while the Hokies are 1.5 back and in seventh, the former on pace for a double-bye in the conference tourney, the latter hanging on to one of the last two standard byes. Chirrick goes off on Wildcats Montana State sophomore guard Taylee Chirrick had a game to remember against Weber State on Thursday, as she had a game-high 20 points on 8-for-16 shooting and 3-for-5 from deep in just 26 minutes, but also picked up 9 steals and 4 assists. Those steals were more than anyone else managed in Division I basketball last night, men’s or women’s, and very likely would have resulted in a double-double if she had played even a little bit more. Montana State was blowing out the Wildcats, however, so Chirrick got some rest and the bench got some minutes. The Bobcats would win, 81-36, thanks to Chirrick continuing to put up the best season in the Big Sky. [Get to Know a Mid-Major: Big Sky] Chirrick is second in Division I in steals per game, at 4.4, and ranks first in the conference in Player Efficiency Rating (35.2), thanks to being both the best offensive and defensive player in the Big Sky. Montana State might only get into March Madness because of a conference championship and the automatic bid that comes with it, Chirrick certainly deserves a moment in that national spotlight. Big night for Evans propels UC Irvine UC Irvine had a great night of shooting, hitting 52% from the field, but the issue was that not enough shots were taken, so the result was 69 points. That was enough for a W against Long Beach State, though, since it was held to just 32% shooting. Part of that was due to senior forward Kyle Evans, who not only led the Anteaters with 14 points, but had a Division I-high 6 blocks on the night, as well. Evans logged a double-double by pulling down 11 rebounds — 10 of them defensive — while adding a steal and an assist. Just a big night from the big man, and it resulted in a key W for UC Irvine, which is in a battle for the top spot in the Big West with Hawaii — more on that in a moment. The 6 blocks pushed Evans to third all-time in Anteaters history with 93 blocks, two shy of second place and Michael Olowokandi. [Get to Know a Mid-Major: Big West] Evans has been the best player in the entire conference, and is a huge part of why Anteaters are 11-4 in conference play. They are now also a game up on the Rainbow Warriors in the Big West, which is huge since the top two seeds get a bye straight to the conference tourney semifinals — any cushion you can get for one of those two spots is a dub. A terrible night for Hawaii UC Irvine winning was bad enough for Hawaii, but Cal State Northridge won in overtime against UC Santa Barbara, and then the Rainbow Warriors lost to a middling Cal Poly squad. That left Hawaii at 10-5 and tied for second place, which is no small thing given the aforementioned bye distribution in the Big Sky: Hawaii is perilously close to having to play through the entire conference tournament instead of starting in the semis. Hawaii was never in control, and never led, though they did tie it up briefly in the second: Cal Poly was up 44-35 after the first half, and while the Rainbow Warriors had a better second, they were still outscored there, 42-40. The Mustangs forced 17 turnovers — not many more than the 13 they made — but converted those into points at a much higher rate than Hawaii did, earning a 22-4 point advantage there. Throw in that Hawaii couldn’t hit from deep basically at all, going 2-for-23 compared to Cal Poly’s 8-for-28, and it’s pretty easy to see how the Rainbow Warriors fell to a team that is now just 8-8 in the conference and is in line to be the bottom seed in the Big Sky tournament. Regardless of the Mustangs’ standing, this W was earned: Hawaii had been 14-1 at home this season, but Cal Poly came in and grabbed the upset victory, anyway. A record 44-point game We had three 40-point games in men’s Division I basketball on Wednesday, but none on the women’s side of things. Thursday provided, at least, with South Dakota State’s Brooklyn Meyer leading all scorers across men’s and women’s basketball with 44 points. The senior forward shot 15-for-22 from the field with 14 made free throws in 17 attempts — not a single 3-pointer or attempt from 3 in the mix. To go with the 44 points, Meyer also had 3 rebounds, 4 assists, a steal and 3 blocks. And the wild thing is that the Jackrabbits needed every single bit of that performance: even with Meyer’s 44 spot, they defeated Oral Roberts by the narrow score of 95-93. The 44 points were not just a career-best for Meyer, but also a program high for South Dakota State. And again, even with that level of performance, it still took a layup with just a couple of seconds remaining in regulation to seal the deal. Meyer leads the Summit League in scoring, at 21.9 points per game, and while rebounds weren’t popping out of the boxscore like some other parts of her game on Thursday, she’s also averaging 7.7 of those a game, as well. Her Player Efficiency Rating of 45.9 not only leads Summit, but is second in all of Division I women’s basketball behind UConn’s Sarah Strong. She is having a season, and was well before dropping 44 points on Oral Roberts. A 20-point, 20-rebound game Georgia Tech picked up a W on the road over Pittsburgh, 84-68, and that’s very important for the Yellow Jackets as they battle for seeding in the ACC. The focus from Thursday’s game, though, should all be on the performance of Brianna Turnage, who managed to set career-highs in both points and rebounds with a 20-point, 21-rebound game. This was the first 20-20 game in the entire conference, and Turnage had more to offer, as well: she dished out 5 dimes and had a block and steal each, while shooting an efficient 10-for-13 from the floor. Of her rebounds, 19 of them were defensive boards, and between leading both teams in scoring and denying Pitt opportunity after opportunity for second-chance points, her impact is difficult to overstate. What’s incredible, too, is that the senior guard has been a high-quality rebounder for some time now — she’s averaging 10.8 for the season now that she’s finally getting starter minutes — but her 5.6 points and 2.3 field goals per game this year are career-bests. So, the 21-rebound game is a surprise, but not that surprising. The 20 points to go with it? Well, no one averaging a double-double in the ACC pulled that off this year, so, why not Turnage? Oregon outlasts Nebraska in bubble battle Oregon vs. Nebraska was not just a battle of Big Ten teams trying not to get lost amid a sea of ruthless, ranked competitors, but also a matchup between teams on the bubble. Oregon is 23rd in NET, Nebraska 30th. The Ducks are 30th in Wins Above Bubble (2.64), Nebraska is 38th (1.41) — both are in position for a possible March Madness berth. And this despite that the Huskers have played 10 Quad 1 games and have yet to win a single one of them, while Oregon, at 2-7, is barely any better. Such is the state of a stacked Big Ten, a conference where three currently ranked teams could miss out on a double-bye, while two formerly ranked teams are right behind them in the standings — and all ahead of both Oregon and Nebraska. Here, the two fought to an 80-76 result, with the Ducks coming out ahead. Katie Fiso made it happen for Oregon, as the sophomore guard scored 12 of her 19 points in the fourth quarter: Nebraska began the frame up 63-52, but, powered by Fiso, Oregon exploded for a 28-point quarter while holding the Huskers to 15. Oregon is now 7-8 in Big Ten play and in 11th, one spot out from a bye in the conference tournament. The Ducks are, finally, at a spot in their schedule where they can maybe breathe a little, too, as up next is Indiana and Purdue — two teams below them in the conference, NET and WAB — and then finish the season against Washington. The Huskies are good, but close to Oregon instead of towering above it; basically, without a UCLA or Michigan or a streaking Minnesota to close, Oregon might actually be able to rip off a few wins in a row and secure the final bye.