Almost every team that's ranked in the latest men's basketball AP Top 25 poll was in action on Saturday — 21 of the 25, to be exact, including four top-25 matchups. Those ranked-vs.-ranked matchups don't even include the first Duke-North Carolina matchup of the season. You can see everything that happened in Coach K's final game at Chapel Hill here.
Below you'll find everything you need to know from Saturday's loaded men's basketball slate. First, here's a rundown:
Saturday's top 25 men's basketball games
- No. 1 Auburn 74, Georgia 72
- No. 4 Purdue 82, Michigan 76
- No. 7 Arizona 72, No. 19 Southern California 63
- No. 9 Duke 87, North Carolina 67
- No. 10 Kansas 83, No. 8 Baylor 59
- No. 11 Wisconsin 51, Penn State 49
- No. 12 Villanova 85, No. 17 UConn 74
- Rutgers 84, No. 13 Michigan State 63
- No. 14 Texas Tech 60, West Virginia 53
- No. 18 Illinois 74, Indiana 57
- No. 23 Texas 63, No. 20 Iowa State 41
- DePaul 69, No. 21 Xavier 65
- No. 22 Tennessee 81, South Carolina 57
- Vanderbilt 75, No. 25 LSU 66
- No. 5 Kentucky 66, Alabama 55
- No. 2 Gonzaga 90, BYU 57
- Arizona State 87, No. 3 UCLA 84
Click or tap here to view the complete men's basketball scoreboard.
Coach K and Duke roll to one final win in Chapel Hill
In No. 9 Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski's final road game against rival North Carolina, he was greeted with boos to open the day. The Tar Heel fans would quickly be silenced as the Blue Devils dominated the game from start to finish, rolling to a 87-67 victory. See everything that happened in the game here.
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No. 1 Auburn survives road scare at Georgia
Top-ranked Auburn barely won its first-ever game as the country's No. 1 team, according to the AP poll, when Auburn won at Missouri 55-54 last week, and the Tigers won another close road test Saturday, when they defeated the Georgia Bulldogs, 74-72, on Wendell Green Jr.'s game-winning layup with roughly four seconds remaining.
Green scored 19 points and teammate K.D. Johnson scored a team-high 20 as the Tigers survived against a Bulldogs squad that's now 6-17 (1-9 SEC). Auburn led by 12 points at halftime, but Georgia, fueled by Kario Oquendo's game-high 25 points, rallied to eventually tie the game at 56 on Noah Baumann's jumper. Georgia later took several two-point leads but Auburn scored the game's final four points in the last 40 seconds to escape with a critical win that keeps the Tigers' resume free of a resume-damaging loss. Georgia entered the game ranked No. 215 in the NET rankings, which puts the game in Quadrant 3 for Auburn. The Tigers have now won 19 games in a row to improve to 22-1 (10-0 SEC). Their next game is also on the road, when they travel to Arkansas for a game on Tuesday.
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Arizona State edges out No. 3 UCLA in three overtimes
Even though it took three overtimes, Arizona State put up one of the biggest upsets of the year, edging out No. 3 UCLA, 87-84, in a Pac-12 thriller.
The Sun Devils were led by graduate student Marreon Jackson who posted 24 points and four rebounds. One of the most important Sun Devil scorers down the stretch was junior Jalen Graham. Despite having zero points in the first half, Graham posted 10 points in the second half and then six across the three overtimes.
His best came on this poster in the second extra frame.
JALEN GRAHAM POSTER SLAM IN 2OT 😱
— ESPN (@espn)
On the UCLA side, star Johnny Juzang put up 20 points, but missed his final eight shots of the game. Junior Jaime Jaquez led the way with 27 on the night.
With the loss, UCLA has now lost two-straight games after falling to Arizona, 76-66, on Thursday.
This is Arizona State’s first win vs. an AP top-3 team when unranked since beating then-No. 2 Arizona on Feb. 14, 2014 in 2OT.
Kansas avoids back-to-back home losses with runaway win over Baylor
What a difference a week makes. Last Saturday, Kentucky walked into Lawrence, Kan., and won by 18 points at Phog Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks rarely lose at home, let alone get blown out.
This Saturday, Kansas avoided a second consecutive home loss with an 83-59 win over No. 8 Baylor. It was the Jayhawks' second straight double-digit home win over the Bears. Kansas' defense held Baylor to just under 30-percent shooting from the field and the Jayhawks forced 14 turnovers by the Bears. Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun each scored 18 points to pace Kansas, which is now 8-1 in the Big 12, while Baylor dropped to 7-3.
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Texas' defense overwhelms Iowa State
In one of Saturday's four ranked-versus-ranked matchups, Texas stifled Iowa State in a 63-41 win, which marked the Cyclones' fewest points in a game since Jan. 20, 1958, when they managed just 36 points in a nine-point defeat at Colorado. Texas' defense forced 18 turnovers, while Iowa State made just two of its 15 3-point attempts (13.3 percent) and 12 of its 34 shots inside the arc (35.3 percent).
Longhorns guards Andrew Jones and Marcus Carr each scored a game-high 14 points – for reference, Iowa State made 14 field goals as a team – while forward Christian Bishop chipped in 10 points and seven boards. Due to Texas' top-10 defensive efficiency and its tempo, which ranks in the bottom 20 nationally, per kenpom.com, the Longhorns have now held four of their last five opponents to 51 points or fewer.
Texas is now 6-4 in Big 12 play, while Iowa State has dropped to 3-7 in the conference after a 12-0 start to the season.
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Villanova wins top 25 Big East battle
Villanova entered the weekend two games in the loss column behind Providence in the Big East standings and with junior guard and the team's second-leading scorer Justin Moore sitting on the bench in a polo after suffering an ankle injury against Marquette earlier in the week. But the Wildcats held serve at home against No. 17 UConn in the first meeting this season between the two ranked squads.
Forward Eric Dixon, who averages just 9 points per game, was the team's leading scorer with 24 points and he finished with a double-double thanks to 12 rebounds. It marked his season high in points (nine more than his previous best) and rebounds (two more). Fifth-year senior point guard Collin Gillespie added 19 points, including four of the team's six 3-pointers. The Wildcats were nearly perfect from the free throw line, where they sank 21 of 22 attempts, with Caleb Daniels (6-for-6), Dixon (4-for-4) and Chris Arcidiacono (4-for-4) each being perfect with at least four attempts.
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Illinois is the first team to 10 Big Ten wins
Big Ten leader Illinois was going to have its work cut out on Saturday at Indiana in a game that kenpom.com projected the Hoosiers to win by one, but it dominated on the road, winning 74-57 in Bloomington behind 23 points from guard Trent Frazier, who made eight of 11 shots. Illinois held Indiana forward Trayce Jackson-Davis to six points and six rebounds, while backup big Michael Durr fouled out in 12 minutes played, as Kofi Cockburn finished with 17 points and eight boards.
Illinois is in 10-2 in the Big Ten, while Indiana is now 7-5 in the crowded conference. Next up for Illinois is a road game against Purdue on Tuesday, which is the rematch of a thrilling first meeting, when the Boilermakers won 96-88 in double overtime in Champaign.
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Rutgers topples Michigan State at home...again
At halftime, Rutgers led No. 13 Michigan State 40-38 in what looked like it would be another Big Ten game that would come down to the wire like many in the conference this season. Yet, in the second half the margin grew, and kept growing in the favor of the unranked Scarlet Knights.
Rutgers dominated Michigan State in the second half to win convincingly after shooting 60 percent from the field, a program record in the Big Ten. Paul Mulcahy's 12 assists were the most by a Rutgers player since 1997 and the guard added 15 points on the afternoon as one of six players to score in double figures.
It's not the first time this season that Rutgers has knocked off a ranked opponent in Piscataway this year — you might remember when Rutgers knocked off then-No. 1 Purdue back in December. This go around it was Michigan State on the losing end of a Scarlet Knight upset, but a buzzer-beater wasn't needed. The Spartans have now lost in New Jersey by a combined 51 points in the last two meetings.
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Arizona picks up another ranked Pac-12 win
The seventh-ranked Arizona Wildcats entered Saturday with conditions perfect for a let-down game. The Wildcats were coming off a revenge victory over No. 3 UCLA just two days prior. With 6:29 remaining in the second half, it looked like a let-down loss was exactly how the week would finish for Arizona, as it trailed No. 19 Southern California by six in a hard-fought contest.
However, the game was not over and the Wildcats didn't hang their heads. In fact, Arizona dispelled any thoughts of let-down demons with an 18-3 run to close the game, winning 72-63. Led by Azuolas Tubelis' 18 points, including six points in that game-closing stretch, Arizona capped off a fantastic week in the Pac-12 to move and remain atop the conference standings.
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Wisconsin holds off Penn State after slow start
When Wisconsin and Penn State's football programs met in September, the schools combined for 26 points. In the first half of the two school's basketball program's game Saturday, the schools combined for just five points more as No. 11 Wisconsin led 18-13.
Why the slow start? Well, Penn State's plane getting delayed, followed by an arrival one hour before tip off may have played a role. The Nittany Lions started the game shooting 1-20 from the field.
Despite the circumstances, Penn State fought hard, holding a 40-36 lead with less than eight minutes to play. Then, Wisconsin went on a 13-0 run to jump in front by nine points with 3:44 to go. That was followed by a 9-0 Penn State run to tie the game at 49 with 51 seconds left. It was a back-and-forth affair that came down to the wire after what looked like a dud early on.
Ultimately, Tyler Wahl's two-point go-ahead basket with 31 seconds would be the deciding factor as Wisconsin held on to win 51-49. It was a valiant effort from Penn State, who has now lost 21-straight games in Madison, with its last win in 1995.
