{"id":161085,"date":"2022-12-18T05:47:08","date_gmt":"2022-12-18T05:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/college-basketball-scores-winners-and-losers-kansas-and-uconn-make-big-statements-purdue-struggles\/"},"modified":"2022-12-18T05:47:08","modified_gmt":"2022-12-18T05:47:08","slug":"college-basketball-scores-winners-and-losers-kansas-and-uconn-make-big-statements-purdue-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/college-basketball-scores-winners-and-losers-kansas-and-uconn-make-big-statements-purdue-struggles\/","title":{"rendered":"College basketball scores, winners and losers: Kansas and UConn make big statements, Purdue struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"
The busiest day of the college basketball season to date doubled as the best of the season with buzzer-beaters, late-game drama, scoring explosions and everything in between filling a full day on the Saturday slate.<\/p>\n
So who were the day’s winners and losers? Well, turns out, there were . . . a lot of both categories. Five games were ranked vs. ranked matchups and 19 total ranked teams were in action. That led to some very good moments for some (Kansas and Gonzaga!), some low moments for others (Indiana!) and some painful moments for others (looking at you, UCF<\/a>!)<\/p>\n We’re still a couple of weeks away from conference play hitting full stride across the country, but the stakes were high in places like New York’s Madison Square Garden, Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena and Birmingham, Alabama’s Legacy Arena, where marquee matchups took place . The NCAA Tournament field won’t be set for a few months, but Saturday’s action will doubtlessly reverberate through the bracket come Selection Sunday.<\/p>\n Let’s make some sense of the loaded Saturday with a look at some of the winners and losers from the most significant slate yet in the 2022-23 college basketball season.<\/p>\n no. 8 Kansas took a sledgehammer to the Vegas line and effectively obliterated pre-game expectations, covering the 5.5-point spread in which it was favored with ease in an 84-62 beatdown of No. 14 Indiana. That was the goods. Freshman Gradey Dick was nails with 20 points and five other KU players finished in double figures. <\/p>\n Then there was the real<\/em> goods postgame that came from KU’s social team. After the win, it fired off a tweet mocking an Indiana tweet and inserting Kansas into the mix. Savage, yet beautiful. <\/p>\n After a 7-0 start to open the season, culminating with a win over then-No. 18 North Carolina, the Hoosiers have hit a humbling month in the calendar with its loss to Kansas marking its third loss in its last four games. All three of those losses were by 14 or more points, with Saturday’s 22-point margin in defeat its largest of the season.<\/p>\n “It hurts because I thought this week’s practice was really competitive,” IU coach Mike Woodson said. “We just weren’t in the game. Somehow I gotta get this team to understand that when we play top notch teams, you’ve gotta give yourself a chance.”<\/p>\n Indiana played its way out of it early with careless mistakes and turnovers, committing 23 on the road. Guard play has been a bit shaky of late with Jalen Hood-Schifino in and out of the lineup with injury so there’s some wiggle room for IU to improve. (He played 30 minutes but had a team-high five turnovers.)<\/p>\n “Twenty-three turnovers against a really good team, that’s 23 times you don’t get an opportunity to score the ball. And they came in bunches,” said Woodson. “That’s something we’ve got to clean up because we’re not a big turnover team.”<\/p>\n Early this season Gonzaga’s been touch-and-go as a contender with some nice wins \u2013 over Kentucky, over Xavier \u2013 and some tough losses (to Texas and Purdue by a lot and to Baylor by a little.) But Saturday felt like a grand. reawakening for the Zags. In a (semi) road environment, Gonzaga downed No. 4 Alabama \u2013 a team that has already beaten the AP-ranked No. 1 team twice this season, most recently Houston last weekend \u2013 by a final margin of 100-90. It marked the first time Gonzaga has ever scored 100 points against a top-five team and the first time since Duke in a 118-84 win in 2018 a team scored 100 points or more in regulation away from home, per Matt Eisenberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just one week removed from his lowest-scoring game of the season last weekend \u2013 an eight-point outing in which he went 0-of-8 from the field against No. 1 Houston \u2013 Miller on Saturday turned in his most complete game of the season. It came in a loss, but it can’t overshadow the impact he had on keeping Bama in it against Gonzaga. He was active on defense, assertive getting to his spots on offense and electric putting the basketball inside the hoop, finishing with 36 points \u2013 tied for the most in a game by a power conference player this season. <\/p>\n Three days after losing by 11 at Duquesne, things went from bad to worse for DePaul as the Blue Demons lost 83-45 at Northwestern. The Wildcats outscored DePaul 44-19 in the second half and forced 22 turnovers as the Blue Demons dropped to 6-6. Though he acknowledged that injuries have played a role in the team’s poor play, athletic director DeWayne Peevy released a surprisingly scathing assessment of the program’s performance in the aftermath of the 38-point loss.<\/p>\nWinner: Kansas (and its social media team!)<\/h2>\n
Loser: Indiana’s slide continues<\/h2>\n
Winner: Zags announce they’re back<\/h2>\n
Winner: Bama’s Brandon Miller flashes his stardom (again)<\/h2>\n
Loser: DePaul gets put on blast<\/h2>\n