Last Night in College Basketball: Gonzaga Remembered Itself Against Santa Clara

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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.

That’s more like it, Gonzaga

Gonzaga has been in a strange place lately, as it shot all the way up to 2nd in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings, and then started playing as if that were a mistake. There was the near-miss win over San Diego — which currently ranks 220th in NET — and then overtime against Seattle as a followup. Seattle is much better than San Diego, but not "push Gonzaga to OT" better. The Bulldogs then crushed Loyola Marymount, though, and on Thursday defeated the as-of-then undefeated in West Coast Conference play, Santa Clara, by 12 points.

Maybe 12 points doesn’t sound like that much sans context, but Santa Clara came into the game ranked 57th in NET in addition to the then-4-0 record in conference games. This was a significant game and opponent for a Gonzaga team that has seemingly taken its foot off the accelerator, the kind of W that reaffirms that there is something special here.

Part of that is certainly the performance of senior forward Graham Ike, who was just lights out. He scored a game-high 34 points on 13-for-17 shooting, drained his lone attempt from deep, shot 7-of-8 from the line, pulled down 11 rebounds to secure the double-double and added a steal and block each on top of all that. It’s the kind of takeover of a game — and against a real good team — that Gonzaga had been missing of late, when it just stopped playing defense against San Diego for an alarming length of time, or when it allowed Seattle to push it into OT.

And holding Santa Clara to 77 points is significant, as well. The Broncos sit 55th in KenPom’s Offensive Rating, at 118.5 points per 100 possessions, but here were held to 43% shooting and a tame 7-for-26 from three, while Gonzaga dominated in the paint, 50 points to 34.

Vanderbilt and Texas are still undefeated

Vanderbilt and Texas came into Thursday’s games undefeated, and while it will be impossible for the two to both stay that way forever — the Commodores and Longhorns both play in the SEC and will face each other in conference play on Feb. 12 — that’s a problem for later. In the present, Vanderbilt took down Missouri, 99-68, while Texas smoked Auburn, 97-36.

The Commodores are now 16-0, one win away from matching the program-best 17-0 start of the 1992-1993 team that finished the season No. 1 in the poll and reached the Final Four for the only time in team history. And in the present got here on the strength of their starting five. Led by sophomore guard Mikayla Blakes — who scored a game-high 20 points with 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals in 34 minutes — all five starters managed at least 15 points, with senior forward Sacha Washington even putting up a 15-point, 16-rebound double-double. 

Meanwhile, the Longhorns’ starters similarly all put up numbers, with four of five hitting double-digit scoring, but the star of the night was senior Kyla Oldacre off the bench. In just 20 minutes, the 6-foot-6 center amassed a game- and career-high 23 points with 11 rebounds for a double-double from the bench. She’s having by far the best season of her career despite the limited minutes, with 12.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game while averaging 20.5 minutes — all career-highs. The Longhorns as a unit ran roughshod all over Auburn, though, and even had a 20-0 run in the first quarter that helped them to a 27-5 start. Things got better from there for the Tigers, but only because they couldn’t get worse.

Texas is now not just 18-0, but 3-0 in the start of SEC play. It’s third in points per game, at 91.9, and, unlike the top team in that stat, LSU, Texas has put up those numbers while playing good — and even exceptional — basketball teams like UCLA and South Carolina, loading up on ranked, Quad 1 and Quad 2 victories along the way. 

If that feels like an unnecessary jab at LSU to pump up Texas, it’s not — it’s a segue! The two face off on Jan. 11, in a game that is going to tell us a whole lot about both teams and the power balance of the SEC.

Ole Miss upsets Oklahoma

A ranked-ranked matchup between SEC teams? That’s another segue. On Thursday, No. 18 Ole Miss defeated No. 5 Oklahoma on the road to match the two, 2-1, in SEC play, while also giving the Rebels some shine in next week’s poll for the big W.

It’s not difficult to see where the Sooners went wrong here, mostly because it’s obvious what went right. Senior and 6-foot-4 center Raegan Beers dominated underneath with 15 points and a Division I-high 20 rebounds in 36 minutes. Freshman guard Aaliyah Chavez lit up the scoreboard with a game-high 26 points. The Sooners turned the ball over fewer times than Ole Miss, and outrebounded it, too — just barely on both accounts, but still. 

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The issue for Oklahoma was that senior guard Payton Verhulst couldn’t get going — she scored just 2 points on 1-for-14 shooting despite averaging 10.3 on 41.2% coming into the game — and the bench could not make up for it with just 6 points in 38 combined minutes. She was second in rebounds on OU, with 4, and Beers somehow led in assists with 4. Chavez, for all the good in her game, turned the ball over 7 times, and the team as a whole shot 34% and 24% from three.

Ole Miss, conversely, shot 47% and 42%, respectively, draining just 5 threes but otherwise successfully focusing on high-percentage shots that fell for the Rebel with more regularity than the Sooners could manage. Senior forward Latasha Lattimore provided the help off of the bench that Oklahoma couldn’t muster, with 3 blocks and 13 points on 6-for-10 shooting and a near-miss double-double courtesy a team-high 9 rebounds, and Ole Miss found itself the winner in a close bout because of it, 74-69.

Dunk clinic

There is a reason that FOX Sports college basketball analyst Casey Jacobsen referred to Michigan State’s Coen Carr as one of the best dunkers in the sport right now. If you weren’t convinced, though, have some more evidence. 

These things just make an impact, you can feel them through the screen.

Which, admittedly, is better than having them actually happen to you, like with Northwestern on Thursday.
 

Carr scored just 8 points in his 26 minutes, but they left a mark in the 76-66 Michigan State W that pushed them to 4-1 in Big Ten play. Northwestern, meanwhile, is still searching for its first conference dub after four unsuccessful tries.

A 43-point game… in an L

Senior guard and Tulane transfer Michael Eley did about all he could do for Hampton on Thursday. He played 30 minutes off the bench while pulling down 8 rebounds with an assist, 3 steals and a block. He also scored 43 of the bench’s 53 points, and oh, was the only player on the Pirates to even reach double-digits. The entire starting lineup for Hampton combined for 19 points. 

Eley went 13-for-21 from the field to post the nightly Division I-high in points. The rest of the Pirates shot 11-for-31. He went 3-for-9 from deep; his teammates managed 1-for-5 on their own. As a team, Hampton went 20-for-26 from the line, but 14 of those — in 15 attempts — were out of the hands of Eley.

No surprise then that Hampton lost, 86-72, to Campbell. No one had the game that Eley did for the Fighting Camels, but no one had to, either, not when three players scored between 17 and 26 points and a fourth chipped in 11 off the bench. Hampton also just could not play effective defense, and instead ran into continual foul trouble. Campbell went to the line 38 times and sank 32 of those freebies, basically nullifying that, from the field, the Camels were held to just 40% shooting.

Scoring 32 points off of free throws and another 30 off of the deep ball is enough to win some college basketball games on their own, but add in that 26 points were scored off of turnovers and it’s a wonder the game was close at all.

At some points it wasn’t: Hampton did go down by 25, and were in fact trailing by that much, 72-48, with 8:48 to go in the game. Eley scored 13 of his 43 from that point forward, however, and the Pirates played better defense to slow Campbell down a bit. Just not enough, not with the hole that had already been dug.

Another SEC upset in Alabama

No. 6 Kentucky, riding high off of knocking LSU out of the top 10 and propelling itself into it, came into Alabama for SEC action on Thursday. This time, it was the Wildcats that were upset, as the Crimson Tide would win, 64-51, in a dominating defensive showing that pushed them to 16-1 overall and 2-1 in conference play.

Kentucky’s bench was limited to 5 points in 38 minutes, while just two starters managed double-digits — senior guard Tonie Morgan led the Wildcats with 14 points on 4-for-13 shooting. As a team, Kentucky shot just 31% — 17-for-34 — and were only that high because of going 7-for-22 from three. To make matters worse, the Wildcats had just 16 free throw attempts and missed six of them.

It’s not like Bama shot that much better, but it did, with seven of its own threes and 23 baskets overall on 38% shooting. The Tide won the battle in the paint, 26-12, and converted more turnovers into points, as well, 21-14. Those numbers aren’t huge out of context, but knowing that Kentucky couldn’t hit its shots makes them feel insurmountable.

This upset makes for a potential change in the poll next week, but maybe not as much for Kentucky as for Bama. It was sitting just outside the top 25 in NET, at 28, before this matchup, and was bumped to 22nd after the dub. A ninth SEC team in the poll? It could happen!

Gardner powers Idaho

Senior and Washington State transfer Kyra Gardner had an excellent showing for Idaho against Montana. The guard scored 28 points on 10-for-15 shooting while adding 11 rebounds for the double-double, but also managed 2 assists, 2 blocks and a Division I-leading 7 steals in the 67-50 win.

Gardner has stolen the ball quite a bit in 2025-2026, as she has 2.9 per game, good for third in the Big Sky conference behind Montana State’s duo of Taylee Chirrick (3.8) and Jamison Philip (3.0), with Chirrick ranking fifth in all of women’s Division I basketball. This has been a breakout campaign for her, as her previous high for playing time was 9.5 minutes per game; now at 27 per, she’s averaging 13.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists and just under a block per game in addition to all of those thefts.

Michigan remembered how to shoot threes

Michigan has been struggling shooting from deep since December began, and it’s not as if it was a particularly great long-range team before then, either. This tendency has gotten the Wolverines into trouble quite a bit lately, with Oregon taking them to overtime and then Washington upsetting them, followed by a win over Minnesota that once again suffered due to the shooting.

Penn State did not face that version of Michigan on Thursday. The Wolverines were 12-for-27 from beyond the arc, 44%, and that plus 25-for-30 shooting from the line allowed for a dominant 105-65 win over the Nittany Lions.

Now, don’t get too excited that the shooting struggles are over and done with. Penn State has one of the worst perimeter defenses in the game, as it’s allowed opponents to shoot 34.5% from three: that’s tied for the 20th-highest rate out of 363 teams. It has also allowed 45% shooting overall, the 17th-worst rate in Division I women’s basketball, all of which is to say that there is a reason that the Lions are 0-5 in Big Ten play so far. Michigan’s starters also didn’t shoot particularly well overall, with sophomore guards Syla Swords, Mila Holloway and Olivia Olson combining for an 11-for-32 performance on the night — the bench provided 44 points on 15-for-26 shooting to bail the trio out.

Still! Michigan stopped digging the hole deeper for a game, and can start trying to climb out of it in the next one against Wisconsin.

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