It’s Monday, I’m sorry. Welcome to The Next’s Daily Briefing, featuring the daily Watch List and Yesterday’s Recap! Day 111 of college basketball is here, following a crazy day in which Iowa — more specifically, Caitlin Clark — shot Michigan’s regular-season-championship dreams out of the gym. That wasn’t even the biggest personal or team performance of the day: Aneesah Morrow had 41 points to cap her historic freshman regular season campaign, while Louisville crushed Notre Dame, leading 45-4 after 13 minutes.
Remember when I said yesterday was the last full day of regular-season college ball? I said “full” for a reason: The Big 12 and other smaller mid-majors keep playing this week. That’ll get sprinkled in to the Watch List throughout the week.
Note: TDB is compiled before the weekly AP Poll. All rankings herein are as of Feb. 27.
Watch List, Monday, Feb. 28
(All times in Eastern)
Must-watch
#5 Baylor @ #9 Iowa State, 7 p.m., ESPN2
Good games
None
Also watchable
None
Sunday, Feb. 27 recap
#1 South Carolina: 71-57 win over Ole Miss. (The Gamecocks won the SEC, obviously. I don’t know when exactly that happened, but my guess is it happened sometime back in November.)
#3 N.C. State, #23 Virginia Tech: The Wolfpack beat the Hokies 68-66, clinching a full regular-season ACC title, their first since 1990.
#4 Louisville, #14 Notre Dame: The Cardinals beat the Irish 86-64, but only after taking their foot off the gas after leading 45-4 (FORTY-FIVE-TO-FOUR). Against a top-15 team!
#6 Michigan, #21 Iowa: The Hawkeyes beat the Wolverines 104-80, clinching a share of their first regular-season championship since 2008 — although Ohio State has the tiebreaker, making the Buckeyes the tournament’s No. 1 seed. Michigan is denied its first-ever title thanks to not being able to reschedule a game against last-place Illinois that was canceled because of weather.
Iowa point guard Caitlin Clark had 38 points on 11-for-18 from the field, 8-for-11 from three, and 8-for-8 from the line with six rebounds, 11 assists, and three steals against two turnovers — which is pretty good, I think.
#7 UConn: 88-31 win over Providence. Led 51-10 at halftime. Paige Bueckers started — which is good — and she played 13 minutes — not traditional starter minutes, but a number that reflects her stamina ramping up. She had two points on 0-for-1 FG, three rebounds, and five assists.
#8 LSU, #16 Tennessee: The Tigers beat the Vols 57-54. Tennessee badly misses point wing Jordan Horston. Badly.
#15 Florida: 78-73 loss to Mizzou.
#17 Ohio State: 61-55 win over Michigan State, which combined with Michigan’s loss gives the Buckeyes a share of the regular-season championship, though they take the one-seed with their head-to-head win over co-champion Iowa.
#18 North Carolina: 74-46 win over Duke, the Heels’ first season-series sweep of the Blue Devils since 2014 and their second since 2008.
Remember when Duke was ranked in the top-15 and had challenged South Carolina and beat Iowa and Notre Dame? What a time.
#22 Georgia Tech: 64-56 win over Wake Forest.
#25 Georgia: 67-58 win over Texas A&M, who goes from the 2021 regular-season champs to the 2022 second-worst team in the SEC.
Kentucky: 90-62 win over Auburn. Wing Rhyne Howard, the likely No. 1 pick in the coming draft, closed her Memorial Coliseum career with 32 points on 11-for-20 from the field and 8-for-13 from three with two assists and two steals in only 28 minutes.
DePaul: 90-84 win over Creighton. Big Aneesah Morrow, the presumptive National Freshman of the Year, had her 23rd-straight double-double with 41 points on 16-for-26 from the field and 9-for-12 from the line and 18 rebounds (eight offensive), plus two steals against four turnovers.
Cancellations
- RV* Princeton @ Harvard
