College hoops roundup: Kentucky, Virginia and Indiana State all score huge resume wins

Five top 25 teams took the floor on Tuesday night. Only two came back to campus with victories. Also, Marshall Henderson violently threw ice into the crowd.

Here’s how it all went down.

Top 25 Scores

No. 11 Ohio State 58, Wisconsin 49

This was a character win for the Buckeyes, who managed to pull off the ever-rare 15-0 run against Wisconsin in the second half. That run helped erase a two-point hafltime deficit that was made possible by a season-low 24-point first half output. DeShaun Thomas again played hero, scoring 10 of the OSU’s 15 points during the key stretch and finishing with a game-high 25.

This is an interesting Ohio State team in that they don’t have anywhere near the inside presence that we’ve come to expect from the Buckeyes under Thad Matta. Because of this, I think this is a team better suited for a deep run in the NCAA Tournament than it is to compete for a regular season title in the rugged Big Ten. Time will tell.

Indiana State 68, No. 15 Wichita State 55

Could The Valley wind up being a three-bid league? Indiana State now has a road win over Wichita State to go with its neutral court victories over Miami and Ole Miss. If they can finish the regular season with less than 10 overall losses, I think it’ll be hard to keep them out of the fileld of 68.

Kentucky 87, No. 16 Ole Miss 74

Nerlens Noel stole the show on what was supposed to be Marshall Henderson’s big night. The Kentucky freshman set a single-game school record with 12 blocked shots, the final five of which he recorded while playing with four fouls. Remarkably, Noel is now one block ahead of where eventual national POY Anthony Davis was at this point last season. His 94 stuffs are also more than the totals posted by 10 SEC teams.

As for Henderson, he still did some Marshall stuff, just most of it was the bad kind. The excitable junior finished with 21 points, but hurt his team far more often than he helped it. Henderson finished just 5-of-19 from the field and made only two of his 11 three-point attempts. He had just one assist, and the Rebels finished with only nine as a team.

The win moves Kentucky definitively back onto the right side, and makes Ole Miss look way more like a pretender than it did 24 hours ago. They’ll get a chance to quickly debunk that stance when they travel to Gainesville on Saturday.

Virginia 58, No. 19 NC State 55

Another team that may have played itself into the momentary field of 68 on Tuesday night was Virginia, which held the ACC’s top scoring offense nearly 25 points below its season average. More concerning than the loss for NC State was the ankle injury suffered by point guard Lorenzo Brown midway through the first half. Brown did not return to the game, and the Wolfpack looked like a completely different team without him.

NC State remains the only ACC team to have never won inside John Paul Jones Arena, where they are now 0-5. The loss also dropped the Pack to 1-20 all-time in games played immediately after wins over either Duke or North Carolina. That’s not good.

No. 23 Minnesota 84, Nebraska 65

Tim Miles tweeted at halftime again and Ray Gallegos became the first Cornhusker in five years to score 30 points, but neither of those things were enough to extend Minnesota’s losing streak to five games. The Golden Gophers dominated the paint, outrebounding Nebraska by 17 (36-19) and getting easy bucket after easy bucket around the rim. Rodney Williams led the charge with 23 points on approximately 76 dunks. Pretty sure the math adds up. Don’t look at me like that.

Other Scores of Note

Clemson 63, Georgia Tech 60

Odds that Georgia Tech bounces back from this and upsets Virginia on Sunday? Not too bad.

Tennessee 58, Vanderbilt 57

Vanderbilt keeps coming tantalizingly close to notching that ever-elusive “yeah we’re really bad this year, but this is a great night for our fans to celebrate” win. Jarnell Stokes scored 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for Tennessee, which won its second consecutive game by a single point.

North Carolina 82, Boston College 70

A scary concussion suffered by P.J. Hairston after he was dealt a violent elbow to the head wound up defining this game. Still, it was a solid performance by Carolina in a situation where it couldn’t afford a loss.

UNLV 66, Nevada 54

The inside duo of Kem Birch and Anthony Bennett combined for 27 points and 16 rebounds as Vegas cruised to its seventh straight win over in-state rival Nevada.