COLUMN: Late-season swoon frustrating for USC but shouldn’t dim optimism

This first season was always going to be graded on a curve for USC basketball coach Eric Musselman, who inherited one returning player (who barely plays) and basically started from scratch last spring in resetting the program. Well, USC had lost seven of eight games (including five straight) before a much-needed 92-61 victory at home Wednesday night over Washington.

Arkansas to face Duke in primetime Thanksgiving matchup

The Arkansas basketball team will take on the Duke Blue Devils at the United Center in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day 2025, the school announced Thursday. The game will be broadcast on CBS and will tip off at 7 p.m. CT as a part of the CBS Sports Thanksgiving Classic. This is the second year in a row that Arkansas will play on Thanksgiving, as the Razorbacks played Illinois at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City last year.

Duke has chance to get Maliq Brown back for UNC game

There is a chance Maliq Brown could return for Duke in its game at North Carolina on Saturday night. Coach Jon Scheyer said Brown would “try to” practice Thursday, while making it clear his defensive savant of a backup center has not practiced in the past two weeks because of his separated left shoulder. “Maliq’s been telling me for two weeks, ‘I’m ready,’ even when he hasn’t been,” Scheyer said.