Last Night in College Basketball: No. 2 Michigan Avoids Upset With Comeback

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. Michigan turns it on in 2nd, avoids upset It’s a dangerous time of year for college basketball teams, especially the good ones. There isn’t much time left before conference tournaments begin, and the teams on the bubble are trying to make a point that the committee won’t forget come Selection Sunday. Teams like No. 2 Michigan have a target on its back, and on Wednesday, Northwestern took aim. The Wildcats had something going in the first half, outscoring Michigan 44-35, and brought the lead all the way to 16 points. The Wolverines finally woke up in the second half, however, and Northwestern was the one in danger from then on out. Down 67-60 with 8:42 left in the game, Michigan went on an 8-0 run over the next minute-and-a-half, then with 5:51 remaining took the lead for good on a Yaxel Lendeborg layup. The senior forward would finish with 15 points and 12 rebounds for a double-double, but the star of the second half was L.J. Cason: the sophomore guard came off the bench and scored 13 of his 18 points in the second half while adding a rebound, 3 assists and 4 steals. Michigan would not just take the lead, but would look a whole lot more like the Wolverines are supposed to from that point forward, and Cason had a lot to do with that. The final score was 87-75, with Michigan dropping 52 points in the second half, the last 33 of those in 10 minutes and change. Five Wolverines scored between 12 and 18 points, and Michigan outrebounded Northwestern, 47-30, giving plenty of opportunities for second chances on a night when they shot just 43%. Against a better team, Michigan might not have been able to turn things around with so much authority, but the bigger concern here might be that the Wolverines didn’t take Northwestern seriously enough until it would have been too late for a number of teams that aren’t Michigan. A good lesson to learn before the Big Ten tournament next month, as well as March Madness. UConn moves up all-time win streak list UConn is back in the thick of Big East play, much to the regret of its Big East opponents. Like Creighton, which UConn defeated 94-44 on Wednesday even without freshman Blanca Quinonez coming off the bench to spell to fellow forwards Sarah Strong and Serah Williams. Sophomore guard Allie Ziebell played 25 minutes off the bench and led the Huskies in scoring, with 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting. She went 5-for-8 from beyond the arc, and also pulled down a pair of rebounds while notching a steal and block each. Despite the absence of Quinonez, sophomore Strong and senior Williams both rested quite a bit against Creighton, as each played all of 19 minutes. The pair combined for 20 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, a steal and a block in that time, though, and UConn slotted 6-foot-5 sophomore center Jana El Alfy in for 16 minutes off the bench while playing small otherwise. This was about more than notching another W against Big East competition, however — even if it was the Huskies’ 52nd-straight regular season conference win. A different, more significant streak was extended against the Bluejays: UConn won its 42nd game in a row, dating back over a year ago when the Huskies lost to Tennessee, tying it for the 8th-longest win streak in Division I women’s basketball history. UConn tied 2011-2012 Baylor (led by LSU’s current head coach, Kim Mulkey) and 2022-2023 South Carolina with the dub. Another win the next time out will put the Huskies in a tie for 7th with the streak Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks kicked off after snapping the previous one, in which they won 43 games in a row from 2023-2025. The Huskies are now 26-0 in 2025-2026 alone, the lone undefeated team remaining in D-I women’s basketball, and are No. 1 in the poll as well as in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET. There is still a whole lot of season left for UConn, so things can change, but the Huskies are looking great. Double overtime for Syracuse-California Both Syracuse and California needed a win on Wednesday. The Orange entered the matchup 71st in NET, California 57th. The Golden Bears have lost each of their three Quad 2 games, but are 4-5 in Quad 1 matchups, while Syracuse has just the one Quad 1 dub to point to, a 62-60 victory over Tennessee. While California was a Quad 2 matchup, not the highest-level game possible, it still mattered in terms of setting either team up to be in a better position come Selection Sunday, should neither make it out of the ACC tournament as champion with an automatic bid in hand. That makes it about as must-win as can be in February, and both teams delivered with a double-overtime special. The game truly never should have gone to overtime, but Syracuse had a problem: it had a stretch where it missed 15 of 16 3-point attempts, which is going to be tough to overcome basically no matter what else happens. The Orange finally landed another with just 57 seconds left in the second half, however, briefly putting them up 78-76 before California tied things and sent the game to OT. California had a buzzer-beater to force a second overtime, when junior guard Dai Dai Ames missed a shot but had it rebounded and put in by senior center Milos Ilic to prolong the game. The second overtime was all Syracuse, however, as the Orange kicked off the final 5-minute period with an 8-2 run and eventually won, 107-100. Senior guard Nate Kingz led all scorers with 27 points on 8-for-14 shooting in 44 minutes, while both William Kyle III (15/16/2) and Nathan George (14/4/10) recorded double-doubles. California fell to 63rd in NET with the loss, while Syracuse jumped to 68th. The Golden Bears, at least, have Quad 1 wins to point to, plural, but Syracuse desperately needed another Quad 2 dub to help offset its high-profile defeats. The Orange got it, but still have more work to do given they are tied for 10th in the ACC alongside the Golden Bears. UCLA crushes Michigan State No. 2 UCLA has not lacked for tests in a competitive Big Ten, but February is where the most challenging matchups of conference play were going to live. So far, so good: the Bruins beat Iowa by 23 to open up the month, escaped Michigan with a 3-point win and now handled No. 13 Michigan State no problem, 86-63. The first quarter ended with UCLA up 23-9 and then nearly pulled off that trick again in the second, entering halftime up 44-20. Michigan State was significantly better in the second half after making adjustments, but only enough to cut a 24-point deficit down to 23 by the time the final buzzer sounded. [Women's Hoops Spotlight: Why UCLA Has a Hold on the Big Ten Title Race] It was the 10th ranked win of the season for UCLA, which is also undefeated in conference play at 14-0. Senior center Lauren Betts led all scorers with 22 points on an efficient 10-for-14 shooting, to which she added 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 blocks in 25 minutes. Not a single UCLA starter played over 29 minutes, but four of the five scored at least a dozen points, anyway, while freshman forward Sienna Betts — Lauren’s 6-foot-4 sister — scored 7 points with 7 rebounds, an assist and 2 blocks in 17 minutes off the bench. Even though the Bruins were facing a ranked conference opponent, the bench amassed 59 minutes. And picked up 20 of UCLA’s 48 rebounds, too; Michigan State had just 28 as a team. The Bruins weren’t perfect, however. They did turn the ball over 18 times, and Michigan State got as close as it did by converting those into 19 points, helping to make up for the fact the Spartans were held to 31% shooting. A team can afford a little bit of sloppiness with defense like that, though, especially when it’s also shooting 56% overall itself, as UCLA did. An upset is possible, of course, but there isn’t a massive challenge left on the regular season schedule for the Bruins: they very well might go 18-0 in conference play despite the Big Ten being stuffed with the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan State, Washington and Maryland. And it’s not like USC or Oregon are pushovers, either. Maryland upsets Iowa Speaking of Big Ten upsets, Maryland’s men’s team took down Iowa on Wednesday, and did so even though Hawkeyes’ guard Bennett Stirtz had a killer game. The senior scored a game-high 32 points, with 4 rebounds, 6 assists and a block, but Iowa still fell short, 77-70. The issue for Iowa was that Stirtz made more than half of the Hawkeyes’ field goals: as a team, Iowa shot 25-for-59, or 42%, while Stirtz alone was 13-for-21, or 62%. Obviously, Stirtz firing them off wasn’t a problem, but he just didn’t get the help he needed from elsewhere. Only one other Hawkeyes player — fellow senior guard Tavion Banks — reached double-digit scoring, and he also led the team in rebounds with 8. Maryland, conversely, had five players in double-digits, ranging from 10 to 24 points, with freshman guard Andre Mills leading the group with a career-high that also counted as the most points scored by a Terps freshman this year. Senior guard David Coit added 19 off the bench, too. The Terps also had 25 field goals, but in far fewer attempts, and with additional trips to the stripe, too, while Iowa didn’t capitalize on Maryland’s 14 turnovers nearly enough. Maryland is now ranked 150th in NET, a boost from 161st, which isn’t going to be nearly enough to attract attention for March Madness. But the Terps did just make life more difficult for an Iowa team that was already struggling to get back into the poll after falling out in mid-January, and that’s not nothing. Iowa defeats Washington It wasn’t all bad for Iowa basketball on Wednesday, at least. The women’s team, also trying to hang on despite some adversity — for these Hawkeyes, in the form of a season-ending ACL tear for Taylor McCabe — managed to repel No. 25 Washington in a ranked-ranked matchup. Sophomore guard Chazadi Wright had a game-high 21 points, a rebound, 4 assists and a steal in 38 minutes, with senior forward Hannah Stuelke adding a 14-point, 16-rebound double-double — her seventh of the season — that accounted for the majority of Iowa’s rebounding. While Washington was ahead 25-19 after the first quarter, Iowa dominated the second, limiting the Huskies to just 5 points. The defensive pressure didn’t remain quite that intense in the second half, but Washington was still limited to just 26 points over the final two quarters, keeping it from ever fully catching up to the Hawkeyes. This loss might be just what needed to happen if a surging Minnesota team is going to make it into the poll, but more importantly, it’s a problem for Washington in the Big Ten. The Huskies are now in 7th at 8-6, with three other teams in line in front of them — including 10-3 Iowa — for the final double-bye of the conference tourney. That’s a gap that can be overcome, but losing a head-to-head matchup with the Hawkeyes hurts the chances of that happening. Georgia Southern rejects Arkansas State Thanks to 40 excellent minutes out of senior Kishyah Anderson, Georgia Southern was able to defeat Arkansas State and move to 11-2 in the Sun Belt. Anderson, despite being a 5-foot-10 guard, had a Division I-leading 6 blocks against the Red Wolves, and that’s not all: she also scored a game-high 21 points and logged a double-double thanks to leading in rebounds as well, with 11. The blocks are a surprise for more reasons than just her modest height: Anderson is averaging half-a-block per game this season and came into the game with 5 all year, and typically is good for around 5 rebounds a night and 13.7 points. With the Eagles winning just 69-60, you know Georgia Southern happily accepted the unexpected bounty. A 21-rebound performance Aijah Palmore had 21 rebounds against Winthrop, which meant that the South Carolina Upstate graduate forward nearly outrebounded the Eagles all on her own. Winthrop pulled down just 26 rebounds against the Spartans’ 49, with more than a little help from Palmore’s big night that included a double-double: she also scored 11 points on 50% shooting, and added a couple of assists for good measure. This is Palmore’s first year in Division I basketball — previously, she played for D-II Barry, where she shot over 52% and averaged 9.2 rebounds in 24.3 minutes per game as a senior. She’s shooting 49.6% with 8.2 boards per in 21.9 minutes with Georgia Southern, but those minutes have climbed in conference play, where she’s averaging 27.6 per game and 10 rebounds per. Virginia Tech upsets No. 20 Clemson Not a great loss for Clemson here, as it pushed them to 10-2 in ACC play, in a tie with Virginia for second behind 11-1 Duke. It’s not the end of Clemson’s season or anything that dramatic, but the ACC hands out a conference tourney double-bye to the first four teams in the conference standings, and Clemson is now separated from NC State and Miami in the standings by a game and 1.5 games, respectively. And the Tigers might end up needing all the help they can get when it comes to winning the conference tournament, too, as Duke isn’t the lone issue. Clemson is 33rd in NET now, a drop from 30th, while the Hokies shot from 55th to 51st by picking up their third Quad 1 win of the season, and on the road, to boot. It’s not just the NCAA Evaluation Tool that likes Clemson less than the voters, either, as the Tigers rank 32nd in KenPom. Oh, and things can get worse faster since No. 4 Duke is next up on the schedule for the Tigers. As for the game itself, Clemson trailed for the majority. Virginia Tech shot a perfect 13-for-13 from the line as a team, sank 11 3-pointers and shot 52% overall. Clemson won the battle in the paint and scored more off turnovers, but neither figure was eye-popping, and served more to keep the Tigers in it rather than ever put them in danger of going ahead again. Virginia Tech was led by senior guard Jailen Bedford, who scored 23 points in 32 minutes, while senior forward Tobi Lawal just missed a double-double with 12 points and 9 boards.