Last night in college basketball: Arizona wins the Big 12 with W against Iowa State

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. Arizona wins the Big 12. No. 6 Iowa State and No. 2 Arizona have been monsters in the Big 12 all season, but the two hadn’t directly faced each other until Monday. The Cyclones were no longer contending for the regular season title, but were (and are) competing for the fourth and final double-bye in the Big 12 Conference Tournament quarterfinal, so a W against the Wildcats would not only show that Iowa State could hang with the best, but would also serve a practical seeding purpose. Instead, Iowa State couldn’t solve Arizona’s defense and shot just 29 percent of the game from the field. The first half was a real problem, with the Cyclones shooting 9 of 33, 27%, and scoring only 25 points. The second half wasn’t much better, at least initially, as Iowa State missed its first eight shots to bring its shooting rate for the game down to 22 percent. They went 10 out of 24 for the rest of the game, a much better 42%, which is better than you’d think given Arizona’s defense, but it was way too late for that to matter. If Iowa State hadn’t made 12 of its 13 free throw attempts, it would have been even worse in the end. The Wildcats shot 46% against Iowa State, which isn’t exceptional but fits perfectly against Iowa State’s top-10 defense. What Arizona was unequivocally successful at was causing shooting fouls: Iowa State could have clawed back its final point total by hitting a dozen free throws, but Arizona took the field 26 times and scored 23 points. The star of the game for Arizona was Tobe Awaka. The senior forward came off the bench for 25 minutes, during which he scored 10 points, recorded an assist and a steal each, grabbed 3 blocks and led all players with 15 rebounds. Of those, 11 were also defensive boards, helping Arizona keep Iowa State away from second-chance opportunities on a night where first chances rarely fell. Arizona has one game left, against Colorado on Saturday, and then it can rest until Thursday when it faces one of the No. 8, No. 9 or No. 16 seeds in the conference tournament. Iowa State, meanwhile, has lost two straight and is a half-game ahead of No. 14 Kansas, which plays Arizona State and Kansas State this week. The Cyclones close out against Arizona State and will need a win to have a real chance of securing one of those double byes. Cleveland State Advances in Horizon Tournament The first conference tournament to start is the Horizon Tournament, which features a single play-in game between the bottom two seeds before moving into the thick of the playoffs. On Monday, the men’s team opened with Cleveland State hosting IU Indy, a matchup between a 6-14 team and a 3-17 team. You might think that would make for some dull basketball, but these two came to play. Or, at least, they came to score: The two combined for 194 points before Cleveland State held on to win, 101-93. Here, however, is the most special thing about the game. The maximum points was 23, and it was achieved by three players… on each team. A six-way tie for the game’s top scorer, split evenly between the Jaguars and Vikings. Savage. For IU Indy, it was senior guard Jaxon Edwards, freshman guard Maguire Mitchell and junior guard Kyler D’Augustino all scoring 23, while Cleveland State included junior forward Preist Ryan, senior guard Jaidon Lipscomb and junior guard Chevalier Emery all hitting 23. Mitchell and Lipscomb had the most 3s of the group, with 5 each, while Ryan got his 23 with 10 for 16 shots while adding 12 rebounds for a double-double. — Edwards also had a double-double, with 10 boards of his own. Emery was the most efficient of all, however, as he played just 22 minutes off the bench and still scored 23 goals on a 7-for-11 performance that included a pair of 3s and 7-for-8 shooting from the line. As a team, Cleveland State shot 63% overall and 11 of 20 from deep. Defense wasn’t the name of the game, not with nearly 200 combined points, but that’s even clearer when you see that the Vikings set up anywhere and hit everywhere. While their own defense faltered in the second half, in which Cleveland State allowed IU Indianapolis to score 57 points, the Vikings still scored 56 and won by 8. Cleveland State will now face top-seeded Wright State on Wednesday, but there could be an upset here: The Vikings actually won the first game between the two this year, and although the second was an L, it was only by 12 points. So… maybe! Detroit Mercy ended Milwaukee’s season The Horizon women’s tournament team also had their play-in game, and that was where Detroit Mercy was visiting Milwaukee. It was a much different affair — it had defense, for one — but Detroit Mercy actually won the W on the road despite shooting just 3 of 18 from 3-point range and 42 percent overall. The difference? Turnovers. Milwaukee shot better, but it also turned the ball over 14 times, with the Titans converting them into 20 points. While Detroit Mercy turned the ball over nearly as often, the Panthers didn’t have the same success turning those opportunities into buckets. It all came down to one last scoring attempt again, and that’s where Detroit Mercy showed the defense that let it stay in the game despite its shooting woes. Milwaukee was still in position to win this late, thanks to its bench. Specifically, Tierney Madigan, who scored 22 points in 26 minutes on 9-for-11 shooting with 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals. If the Panthers had made a few more free throws (they were 13 of 18) or just one more 3 (6 or 22), then Madigan would be a hero this morning, but alas. The Titans shut down Milwaukee when there was no other choice. Next up for Detroit Mercy is top-seeded Green Bay, a rematch of a 72-61 loss from Jan. 24. Duke crushes NC State The No. 1 team in the country is already the ACC regular season champion as well, but Duke is still playing regular season ball. On Monday, the Blue Devils faced NC State on the road, but no advantage was found: Duke won 93-64, improving to 16-1 in conference play. Star freshman forward Cameron Boozer narrowly missed another double-double with a 26-point, 9-rebound performance that led all players on both fronts. The Wolfpack have now lost three in a row, which is a problem in the sense that they can’t climb to fourth place and get one of the byes that would propel them to the quarterfinals, but they remain in sixth place and a game ahead of Louisville, which still has to face Syracuse and No. 22 Miami before its season ends. For now, that allows NC State to face Stanford or Syracuse in the second round of the tournament, but slipping further will force the Wolfpack to face higher-ranked opponents. As for Duke, its fortunes haven’t changed with another dub, but coach Jon Scheyer has taken a major step forward. He is now tied with Brad Stevens for the most DI wins by a coach in their first four seasons, with 117. McNeese earns 20th straight win McNeese has had a serious run in conference play, and the Cowgirls continued that Monday against SFA. McNeese shot 12 of 24 from beyond the arc to propel the Cowgirls to a dominant 87-60 victory over the Ladyjacks, in what was a showcase for the team’s starters. Three starters scored 10 points each, while freshman forward Dakota Howard had 24 on 8-of-11 shooting with 11 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 steals, and senior guard Arianna Patton led all scorers with 30, all on 3-pointers – she shot 10 of 12 from 3 to set a new career high. The bench only scored 3 points combined, but with the other 84 coming from the starters, that didn’t even matter. By the way, Howard led all Division I women’s basketball players Monday in GameScore with her 28.3, followed by Patton. The win gave McNeese the Southland regular-season title, the first time the Cowgirls have won it since 2011. As reward, the Cowgirls rest until the conference tournament semifinal on March 11, where they will face one of four-seed UTRGV, five-seed Northwestern State or the to-be-determined eighth seed. This win is also significant in that it makes it much more difficult for SFA to be the second seed, which is the other free ride to the semifinals. [Get to Know a Mid-Major:Southland] Ingram’s 31-point game, however, Patton wasn’t the leading scorer in all of Division I with her 10 triples. That went to another Southland player, Jalayah Ingram of UTRGV. The junior guard scored 31 points on 11-of-24 shooting, and added 8 rebounds and 5 assists for one of the best performances of the night in men’s or women’s basketball – no one on the men’s side scored 30 points last night. The Vaqueros would win 72-64 against Incarnate Word, putting them in a tie with SFA for third place in the conference after the Ladyjacks lost to McNeese. There are no more matches on the schedule, so that’s as far as UTRGV can go, but it’s enough to start the Southland tournament already in the quarterfinals, at least. Sacramento State Upsets Idaho State We got a taste of Starch Madness last night thanks to Big Sky basketball, with Sacramento State upsetting Idaho State, 85-72, and on the road too. And not just hypothetically, either: Thanks to the surprise W, this pair’s first game in the Big Sky Conference Tournament will be a rematch: Sacramento State had entered the game tied with Eastern Washington with the potential to finish sixth and then have to face third-seeded Northern Colorado in its first playoff action, but instead it’s fifth and faces fourth. The 85 points allowed by Idaho State was the most the Bengals allowed all season, which is not how you want to end things. Sophomore guard Rubi Gray led the Hornets’ offense, scoring a game-high 24 points on 8-of-11 shooting, including 5-of-6 from 3, while adding a rebound, an assist and a steal each. In support, she had two 18-point performances from junior guard Natalia Picton and senior guard Benthe Versteeg – the two also combined for 10 rebounds, 8 assists and 4 steals. While the Hornets also turned the ball over too often — Picton and Versteeg, for all the good they did, also combined for 13 of Sac State’s 21 turnovers — they shot 54 percent overall and 14 of 28 from 3 to negate that, while also converting almost as many points off turnovers (19) as Idaho State (21), although they forced fewer of them. If Idaho State shoots and defends like it did the next time these two meet, the result will be similar and it will be the end of the Bengals’ season.