WEDNESDAY’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL ROUNDUP

TOP 25 MEN

NO. 12 VILLANOVA 71,

ST. JOHN’S 60

VILLANOVA, Pa. — Saddiq Bey scored 23 points and Justin Moore added 21 to lead No. 12 Villanova past St. John’s.

The Wildcats (22-6, 11-4 Big East) had trouble shaking St. John’s until late on a night the program honored former star Kyle Lowry, a five-time All-Star guard for the NBA champion Toronto Raptors who played two seasons for the Wildcats.

St. John’s came in 12½-point underdogs and kept the deficit within single digits for most of the second half. Greg Williams Jr. buried a 3 for the Red Storm (14-14, 3-12) with 4:37 left that pulled them within six.

Moore, though, steadied the Wildcats with his fifth 3 of the game, a driving layup and a pull-up jumper in succession that stretched the lead to 13 and sealed another win for the perennial Big East power.

NO. 16 PENN STATE 65,

RUTGERS 64

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Myles Dread hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 28 seconds left to lift No. 16 Penn State over Rutgers after the Nittany Lions blew a 21-point lead.

Trailing 40-19 late in the first half, the Scarlet Knights tied the game at 62 with 1:32 left in the game on Geo Baker’s layup. His jumper gave Rutgers a two-point lead with 42 seconds remaining. After a timeout, Dread hit his 3-pointer and Akwasi Yeboah’s shot at before the buzzer was off.

Izaiah Brockington scored 16 points and Lamar Stevens added nine for the Nittany Lions (21-7, 11-6 Big Ten).

Jacob Young scored 13 points for the Scarlet Knights (18-11, 9-9), who lost their third straight.

SEC MEN

SOUTH CAROLINA 94,

GEORGIA 90, OT

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina sophomore forward Alanzo Frink obliterated his former career-high with 22 points and Jermaine Couisnard hit five foul shots in overtime to help the Gamecocks rally past Georgia.

Frink led a South Carolina interior that posted 54 points in the paint, an offensive outburst for which the Bulldogs (14-14, 4-11 SEC) had no answer.

The Gamecocks (17-11, 9-6) scored 40 in the paint in a 75-59 paddling of Georgia in Athens on Feb. 12, and with Frink and freshman Jalyn McCreary dominating inside early on Wednesday, they had an easy path toward winning the game.

The Gamecocks’ guards still had to have that lesson delivered to them. They were an icy 6-of-27 from the field, yet continued to shoot.

Keyshawn Bryant’s tip-in with 58 seconds left in overtime put South Carolina up for good, 87-85. Georgia got to 91-90 on Shavir Wheeler’s basket with six seconds to go, but Couisnard made a foul shot and Bryant added two more to close things out.

FLORIDA 81, LSU 66

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Keyontae Johnson had a career-high 25 points to go along with 11 rebounds — his fourth double-double in Florida’s last six games — and the Gators handled LSU from start to finish in a victory.

Freshman Scottie Lewis also enjoyed a career night for Florida, finishing with 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting.

The Gators (18-10, 10-5 Southeastern Conference) won for the fourth time in five games, bolstering their NCAA Tournament resume with less than three weeks remaining before Selection Sunday. Florida now has six wins against teams in the top 50 of the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings, the primary method used to select and seed the 68-team field.

Andrew Nembhard chipped in 17 points for Florida, which shot 55% from the field and hit 9 of 21 from 3-point range.

MISSOURI 61, VANDERBILT 52

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Xavier Pinson scored 15 of his 17 points in the second half, and the Missouri Tigers beat Vanderbilt 61-52 Wednesday night for their first Southeastern Conference road win this season.

The Tigers (14-14, 6-9) had not won away from Columbus since a victory at Georgia on March 6, 2019. Now Missouri has won four straight against Vanderbilt giving the Tigers their longest current winning streak against any SEC team. Third-year coach Cuonzo Martin also improved to 6-2 all-time against the Commodores.

Reed Nikko added 14 points for Missouri.

Vanderbilt (9-19, 1-14) lost its sixth straight after leading by as many as nine in the first half. The Commodores went cold making only one bucket in 12:27 spanning the end of the first half and deep into the second.

TOP 25 WOMEN

NO. 6 UCONN 105,

CINCINNATI 58

CINCINNATI — Megan Walker scored 25 points, freshman Anna Makurat added 20, and No. 6 UConn dominated a match-up of the American Athletic Conference’s top two teams in every way beating Cincinnati.

The Huskies (24-3, 14-0) had already clinched their seventh AAC regular season title. After a sluggish start, they pulled away from Cincinnati (18-9, 9-5), which was in second place alone heading into the game.

The Bearcats had won 12 straight home games, one shy of the school record from 2002-03. Their hopes for a big upset evaporated in the second quarter as UConn surged ahead by 28 points.

UConn got another encouraging performance from Makurat, who has scored 18, 17 and 20 points in the last three games. Her best scoring stretch has added depth to a lineup dependent upon its top four returning players from last season.

TEXAS 77, NO. 25 TCU 76

FORT WORTH, Texas — Celeste Taylor scored 13 of her career-high 22 points and Joyner Holmes all 15 of hers in the second half when Texas rallied to beat No. 25 TCU.

With the loss by TCU (20-6, 11-4), second-ranked Baylor (15-0) clinched the outright Big 12 title.

The Lady Frogs led 35-26 at halftime behind Jaycee Bradley’s 10 points but the Longhorns (17-10, 8-7) scored the first 12 points of the third quarter and kept the lead, extending it to 12 with six consecutive points to open the fourth quarter. TCU only got as close as six midway through the final period.

Three Longhorns finished with triple-doubles: Taylor grabbed 10 rebounds and Holmes 12 while Charli Collier had 16 points and 16 rebounds.

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