College basketball schedule and results: Conference play begins around the country

The defending national champions are 6-5. Temple knocked off UConn in overtime, 57-53, on Wednesday afternoon in Storrs. It’s Temple’s second big win of the last two weeks after upsetting Kansas at home on Dec. 22.

UConn trailed by four with under a minute left but forced overtime with a fast break dunk by Rodney Purvis. The Huskies’ offense then went cold in the extra period. UConn only scored two points, and blew a chance to win the game in the final seconds when freshman wing Daniel Hamilton missed three straight free throws (the last one on purpose) with his team trailing by two.

That guy is 7-feet tall.

Michigan State was in prime position to begin Big Ten play with a huge victory against No. 12 Maryland with less than a minute to go in regulation on Tuesday night. This game was not pretty at all, but the 9-4 Spartans probably didn’t care about style points. The Spartans had not beaten a ranked team this season.

Sounds like a winning formula, right? That’s where things got weird.

Michigan State shot 20.8 percent from the field and finished with more turnovers (six) and fouls (six) than field goals (five). Maryland wasn’t much better, shooting 8-of-22 while committing nine turnovers.

Welcome to Big Ten basketball, everyone.