Category: NCAA Basketball

Donald Hand Jr. scored 22 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, both career highs, as Boston College held off The Citadel 69-60 in a season opener on Monday night. Hand was 4 of 14 shooting from the field but was 3 of 8 from long range and 11-for-11 from the line. Chad Venning scored 15 points and Elijah Strong knocked down his first four shots, including a 3-pointer, to finish with 11 points.

Freshman phenom Cooper Flagg offered plenty of excitement in Duke's season-opening win against Maine on Monday night.

Jaden Akins tied his career high with 23 points as Michigan State basketball rolled Monmouth, 81-57, in the season opener.

221 days ago, Darian DeVries was announced as the 23rd head coach in West Virginia men’s basketball history. 221 days is the amount of time DeVries has had to picture his ideal start to the season, but even the start the Mountaineers had on Monday was likely better than he could have imagined. West Virginia scored the first 21 points of the game, as the Darian DeVries era officially began with an 87-59 win over Robert Morris.

Fellow rookie Kon Knueppel powered the offense with 22 points and three 3-pointers for the Blue Devils (1-0), who shot 55.6% for the game. Quion Burns scored 15 points for the Black Bears (0-1), which shot just 6 for 24 (25%) after halftime as Duke pulled away. Maine: The Black Bears were picked fourth in the America East, their highest projected finish since the 2010-11 season.

Cooper Flagg and Kon Kneuppel led Duke to a huge opening night win.

Horace Simmons led Drexel past Georgian Court on Monday night with 24 points off of the bench in a 95-43 win. Simmons finished 8 of 9 from 3-point range for the Dragons (1-0). Kobe Magee went 5 of 9 from the field (4 for 8 from 3-point range) to add 14 points.

Fletcher Loyer scored 21 points to lead five players in double figures as No. 14 Purdue beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 90-73 on Monday night. Also scoring in double figures were Trey Kaufman-Renn with 15 points, Myles Colvin with 14, Daniel Jacobsen with 13 and Braden Smith with 12. Kaufman-Renn had nine rebounds and Smith had 15 assists.

Beers, a third-team Associated Press All-American for Oregon State last season, made 8 of 11 field goals for the Sooners. Skyler Vann added 12 points and seven rebounds for Oklahoma in its first game as a member of the Southeastern Conference.

The Big Ten College Countdown crew takes a look at the season ahead for the Big Ten men’s basketball teams with the highest expectations.

Robert Hinton scored 27 points as Harvard beat Marist 79-66 on Monday night. Hinton shot 9 of 12 from the field and 8 of 10 from the free-throw line for the Crimson. Austin Hunt and Luca Ace-Nasteski both scored nine points on 4-of-9 shooting.

Jamal Mashburn Jr. had 26 points in Temple's 81-70 win over Sacred Heart on Monday night. Mashburn added three steals for the Owls. William Settle added 16 points while shooting 5 of 9 from the field and 5 for 5 from the free-throw line while he also had seven rebounds, six assists, and three blocks.

Josh Morgan had 25 points in Stonehill's 81-62 win against Framingham State on Monday night. Morgan also added three steals for the Skyhawks. Todd Brogna added 20 points while shooting 5 for 7 (2 for 3 from 3-point range) and 8 of 10 from the free-throw line while he also had eight rebounds.

Clara Strack scored 22 points, Georgia Amoore added 11, and No. 22 Kentucky started with a 98-43 win over South Carolina Upstate on Monday in the Wildcats' first game under Kenny Brooks. Brooks built Virginia Tech into an NCAA Tournament regular and brought Strack, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, and Amoore, a graduate senior and All-American candidate, with him as his Wildcat roster has 11 new players. Amoore had nine points in the first quarter, and Kentucky used runs of 11 and nine points to lead 26-11 after one quarter.

Oziyah Sellers scored a career-high 24 points, Maxime Raynaud added 16 points, 12 rebounds and six assists and Stanford beat Denver 85-62 on Monday in Kyle Smith's debut as the Cardinal's head coach. Smith spent five years at Washington State and last season was the Pac-12 Conference coach of the year when the Cougars reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Smith brought in five transfers, including Stanford's first three undergrad transfers since 2009, and it paid off with Sellers, formerly of USC, scoring 17 second-half points and shooting 10-of-15.