Think the snowfall amounts were extraordinary Saturday? Get a load of some of the totals that happened indoors. Astonishing college basketball numbers came one after another.
Cameron Boozer scored 32 points for Duke, and he was only the fifth top freshman scorer Saturday. Three of the rookies hit the 40 mark the same day, the first time that ever happened in Division I history.
Illinois’ Keaton Wagler scored 19 points in the first 10 minutes at Purdue. He didn’t stop until he had put up 46 — the most ever for an opponent in Mackey Arena and the most for anyone ever on the road against a top-10 team. Wagler hit 13 of 17 shots, including eight of nine from the 3-point line. The game before against Maryland, he was 1-for-9 from outside the arc. “It’s a crazy thing I never really thought I’d do,” Wagler said.
His onslaught was one reason Purdue could shoot 56.9% from the field, commit only three turnovers, lead for nearly 28 minutes — and lose. Another reason for the 88-82 final was the Boilermakers getting dominated 18-2 in second chance scoring.
Houston went into the Texas Tech visit second in the nation in scoring defense, allowing only 60 points a game. The Red Raiders scored 55 in the first half. That was more than 16 opponents could get the entire game last season against the Cougars, and the most given up in the first half in Kelvin Sampson’s 402 games as Houston coach. Such leakage meant freshman Kingston Flemings’ 42 points could not save the day. Texas Tech won 90-86, Houston’s first road loss since 2024 after 16 consecutive victories.
BYU defeated Utah 91-78 and nearly half the points came from AJ Dybantsa. His 43 are the most in history for a BYU freshman.
Wagler. Flemings. Dybantsa. Three teenagers who combined to make 43 of 70 shots, 17 of 25 from the 3-point line, and 28 of 33 free throws.
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In all, 19 players — seven of them freshmen — reached 30 points in Saturday. When California Baptist defeated Utah Valley, 78-71 in overtime, everyone on California Baptist not named Dominique Daniels Jr. combined for 31 points. The senior threw in 47 by himself. Took 21 free throws, made 18.
That kind of day. There were remarkable figures, from the snow gauges to the scoreboard.
Top-ranked Arizona blew away West Virginia 88-53, the sixth victory this season for the 20-0 Wildcats by at least 30 points. Arizona is 7-0 in the Big 12 and has trailed under 14 of the 280 minutes. The Wildcats have led by at least 21 points in 15 of their 20 games and by double figures in all but the wins over Florida and UCLA. And they’ve done all that using the same starting lineup for all 20 games.
Nebraska trailed Minnesota 36-30 at halftime. The Cornhuskers outscored the Gophers 46-21 in the second half for their 24th win in a row. One more victory and they’ll be alone in having the longest winning streak in the Big Ten in 20 years. One thing, though. The next game is at Michigan.
The streak of 12 ACC road victories in a row — matching the league’s longest in 25 years — belongs neither to Duke nor North Carolina. Try Clemson, after its 77-63 win at Georgia Tech.
Michigan State’s 91-48 mashing of Maryland was the second biggest winning margin against a Big Ten opponent in program history. The 17 assists for Jeremy Fears Jr. were the most for a Spartans player in 26 years.
Florida, averaging 91.4 points for its 8-0 home record, managed to score only 67 against Auburn. The Tigers won 76-67, their first win in Gainesville after losing 15 visits in a row back to 1996. Steven Pearl is now 3-5 against ranked opponents in his first season leading the Auburn program and 5-3 against coaches who have been to the Final Four.
UConn escaped Villanova in overtime 75-67 and has now won 15 games in a row, its longest winning streak since 1999. None of the five Huskies national champions this century could do that.
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Gonzaga defeated San Francisco for the 34th time in a row. But San Francisco had a shot to win at the end. The Zags have won 14 in a row even playing without the 36 points a game from injured leading scorers Graham Ike and Braden Huff.
Oklahoma got double-buzzed by Missouri. The Tigers forced overtime with a long 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer, then beat the Sooners 88-87 with a 3-pointer at the buzzer of overtime. The first was by Trent Pierce, who took six shots. That was the only one he made.
North Carolina’s Jarin Stevenson played four minutes in the first half at Virginia and didn’t take a shot. He played 12 minutes the second half, scoring 17 points and leading the Tar Heels’ rally from 16 down to beat the Cavaliers 85-80. North Carolina is 3-1 against ranked opponents. Last season, the Tar Heels went 1-8.
Duke destroyed Wake Forest 48-16 in the paint, to beat the Demon Deacons for the 27th time in a row in Durham, 90-69. The Blue Devils had 16 offensive rebounds – only six fewer than Wake Forest had total rebounds.
Vanderbilt’s 88-56 steamroll at Mississippi State was its biggest winning margin on the road in the SEC in 13 years.
Texas held the nation’s highest scoring team 28 points under its average and whipped Georgia 87-67. The 12-8 Longhorns have beaten four ranked opponents this season, including three in the past two weeks. They didn’t get a single vote in last week’s Associated Press poll.
St. John’s Rick Pitino achieved his 900th career victory, on the home court of the Xavier team coached by his son Richard. Rick Pitino already had 72 victories on the day Richard was born.
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Tennessee won at Alabama 79-73. That’s five wins in a row for the Vols over the Tide, and that hadn’t happened in 54 years.
Texas Tulsa, 56-92 the past five seasons, is now 17-3 after beating Rice 87-81. The Golden Hurricane started the game ahead 22-3. They ended the previous game, a win against Memphis, with a 26-4 run.
North Florida defeated Bellarmine 117-114 in overtime in a 45-minute tribute to efficiency. The two teams combined to shoot 60 percent, hand out 26 assists and commit only 15 turnovers. UNF won after blowing a nine-point lead in the final 31 seconds of regulation.
Navy rolled over Army 84-56, the largest margin of victory for either academy in the series in 27 years. The 46 first half points for Navy were the most for anyone in the series in 36 seasons.
After Saturday’s games, the top four teams of the Big Ten are a combined 33-3 in league play. Purdue, the preseason No. 1 team in the nation, is not one of them. The Boilermakers are now in fifth place.
Just another by-product of an uproarious day. Thanks for the entertainment should first start with the freshmen.
“I feel like we have a crazy class,” Dybantsa said. They did Saturday anyway.
