Last Night in College Basketball: A Wild ACC Tourney Day, and Miami (OH) Goes Down

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Clemson upsets North Carolina, sort of

The ACC men’s tournament quarterfinals brought plenty of chaos. Clemson — the 5-seed — took on 4-seed and No. 19 team UNC on Thursday, and while the favorite from the perspective of the season-long metrics said, that maybe wasn’t true in practice. North Carolina came into the game 24th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, 12 spots ahead of Clemson, but also a not-insignificant portion of that ranking came out of having freshman forward Caleb Wilson around for 24 games, in which he averaged 19.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists.

Wilson has not played since Feb. 10, and is out for the season officially after undergoing surgery on a broken thumb: in the stretch without him, the Tar Heels were 5-2 and scoring 0.3 more points per game than they allowed, whereas in Wilson’s 24 games UNC averaged 81.9 points scored and 70.7 points allowed. So yes, over the course of the season, the Tar Heels have been better than Clemson, but those Tar Heels don’t exist any longer in 2026, either. Not that Clemson was at full strength, either: it lost junior forward Carter Welling to a torn ACL in its win over Wake Forest earlier in the tournament.

And yet, UNC still made this one a game despite the lack of Wilson. Down 39-31 at halftime and eventually trailing by 18, North Carolina exploded for 48 second-half points — the problem is that its defense, never exactly a strong suit even when whole, still allowed 41 to the Tigers. Because UNC had no timeouts left when it grabbed a rebound with just 2.4 seconds left, the best it could manage with this last-ditch effort was a cross-court heave that failed to find the basket.

Clemson would win, 80-79, outlasting the 11-minute UNC surge that nearly erased the 18-point lead. Junior center Henri Veesaar scored 28 for the Tar Heels on 10-for-16 shooting, and the team as a whole got back into it thanks to 11-for-30 from 3, but there was just too much scoring from the Tigers to complete the comeback: while no one on Clemson had the game that Veesaar did, it instead had six different players score between 10 and 17 points.

One other thing that sank UNC here? It shot just 10-for-17 on free throws, while Clemson hit 17 of 23. Just one more successful free throw, and UNC sends this to overtime. Another two, the Tar Heels win outright — and that’s not asking for much, even 12-for-17 is just 71% shooting.

Duke survives FSU

No. 1 Duke had to adjust its lineup to account for multiple injuries to starters: neither guard Caleb Foster or center Patrick Ngongba were available to play thanks to a broken foot and an unnamed foot injury, respectively, and it made the Blue Devils’ job against Florida State that much more difficult. The Seminoles have been playing much better of late — they were 11-3 since Jan. 20, after a brutal 2-10 stretch before then — so the gap between Florida State and Duke is maybe not as pronounced as the seeding or direct comparison of records suggests. That the Blue Devils were without two starters only made that much more apparent.

FSU actually had the lead at the half, 44-43, and at one point was up 8. However, Duke would respond with a 19-2 run that changed the complexion of the game, and huge games from freshman forward Cameron Boozer (23 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists and a steal) and sophomore guard Isaiah Evans (game-high 32 points on 11-for-20 shooting, 7 3-pointers, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block) countered FSU’s similarly big performances. Senior guards Robert McCray and Lajae Jones combined for 53 points on 18-for-34 shooting, 10 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks, and the team shot 52% as a whole. 

Duke, though, outrebounded Florida State 46-25, picking up 22 offensive rebounds, and those second chances added up. Florida State still nearly pulled it off, anyway: a buzzer-beater attempt from McCray rimmed out, and Duke held on for the W.

The Seminoles had a strong second half of the season, rattling off nine wins in a row after their earlier struggles, but they needed this win against Duke to have a chance at March Madness. Its Wins Above Bubble ranking coming into the matchup was 62, and score -1.11 — a dub against Duke would have brought that score nearly all the way to zero and the bubble on its own, in addition to being the kind of W the Selection Committee can point to directly as evidence that Florida State is better than the metrics. Losing didn’t hurt in terms of a fall, but that doesn’t matter since the Seminoles were already on the wrong side of the bubble.

Miami topples Louisville

By seeding, Miami defeating Louisville isn’t an upset: the Hurricanes are the 3-seed, the Cardinals the 6. From the point of view of NET and WAB, though, Miami is 32nd compared to Louisville’s 13th; the Cardinals are actually underranked in the poll as the No. 24 team, by those measures.

That being said, Miami is legit, and it beat Louisville despite the gap in the metrics. The difference for the Hurricanes was the second half of senior forward Malik Reneau: while Louisville was ahead 38-37 at the half, Reneau then scored 17 of his 24 points in the second to lead Miami to a 41-35 half and 78-73 quarterfinal win.

Also keeping the Hurricanes in it was Tru Washington. The junior guard, coming off the bench, scored 17 points for Miami — second in the game behind Reneau — in 27 minutes. He played all but 11 bench minutes for the Canes, in a game where all but one starter played between 31 and 38 minutes.

Elsewhere in the quarterfinals, 2-seed Virginia defeated 7-seed NC State, 81-74. That sets up Virginia-Miami and Clemson-Duke for the ACC semifinals on Friday, or, four of the top-5 seeds left at the end. 

Miami (OH) no longer undefeated

UMass finally did it — the Minutemen defeated Miami (OH). The "finally," in case you haven’t been following the ins and outs of the two this season, is because UMass nearly ended the RedHawks’ undefeated season earlier in the year, in an 86-84 loss on Jan. 27. Miami (OH) also didn’t exactly blow the Minutemen away in their next matchup, either, an 86-77 win for the RedHawks. In the quarterfinals of the MAC tournament, though, UMass got the dub, handing Miami (OH) its first loss of the year and eliminating the 1-seed, 87-83.

UMass was down by 2 at the half, and Miami (OH) extended its lead to 11 and went back to 10 multiple times in the second half. The Minutemen, though, crashed the offensive boards again and again, and the sheer volume of second chances eventually eliminated that deficit. Senior forward Leonardo Bettiol scored a game-high 25 points on 10-for-15 shooting with 8 rebounds, with Massachusetts getting 41 boards total to Miami (OH)’s 24.

Now, this is a huge upset, considering the RedHawks were the 1-seed, 31-0 and, even after the defeat, still 37th in WAB with a score of 1.70 — March Madness-worthy, regardless of losing the shot at an automatic bid and an undefeated season. However, UMass is likely a better team than the metrics imply, as well. In its first season in the MAC, the Minutemen are now 18-15. They were actually doing relatively well until a six-game losing streak in conference play derailed their season, but with one exception those were all close defeats, too. Of its 15 total losses, 11 of them were by 6 points or fewer. A win against Miami (OH) was, in some ways, two scales being rebalanced at once.

Of course, those losses still do count against the team now, which is why it’s still just 197th in NET and 216th in WAB, but the point is that UMass was brought into the MAC and expected to be better than this, and it might just be a bit of luck and unfamiliarity that had things otherwise in this first season. UMass has shown itself capable of, at minimum, hanging with these teams all season long — now, it’s two wins away from actually earning the automatic bid in the conference, which might sound wild, but hey. The Minutemen just took out the top seed, and a team that could very well participate in March Madness with an at-large bid. Expecting more beyond that seems right. UMass will take on 4-seed Toledo on Friday, and the winner of that game will face either 3-seed Kent State or 2-seed Akron in the MAC championship.

SFA defeats McNeese for Southland title

While McNeese’s men defeated Stephen F. Austin on Wednesday to win the Southland championship and the conference’s automatic bid, the Cowgirls were not so lucky on Thursday against SFA’s women. The Ladyjacks were the 3-seed, McNeese the 1, but that didn’t stop SFA from pulling out a 71-59 victory and earning its way to The Big Dance.

Sophomore guard Myka Perry led the way for the Ladyjacks, scoring 21 points on 9-for-14 shooting despite going 0-for-4 from 3-point range. She also had 6 rebounds and an assist, steal and block each. Senior guard Harmanie Dominguez was next up with 18 points on 6-for-8 shooting — 5 of those field goals were treys — and freshman guard Aziyah Farrier made an impact off the bench with 8 points and a game-high 10 boards in 25 minutes.

McNeese got a huge game out of Dakota Howard — the freshman forward led all Division I women’s players in GameScore on Thursday thanks to 23 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 7 steals and a block — but she just did not get enough help otherwise. She had 10 of the Cowgirls’ 22 rebounds and nearly 40% of their points, too; the bench playing 47 minutes and contributing 8 points and zero rebounds was a counterweight dragging Howard’s performance down, and the result was SFA upsetting the top seed in Southland to earn entry in its second-consecutive March Madness.

A 34-point game from Blackwell

Thursday’s leading scorer was Wisconsin’s John Blackwell, who scored 34 points in what went from a potential blowout for the Badgers to a 3-point win where 5-seed Wisconsin just held on. It seemed like the junior guard was just kind of piling on for a bit, scoring 34 on 14-for-24 shooting with half-a-dozen 3s and 10 rebounds, but Washington, down 18, stormed back in the back end of the second half.

With 8:17 remaining, the Badgers were still up 16, 75-59, but a 10-2 run cut that to 77-70, and the Huskies did not stop there. With 1:07 remaining, Washington was within a point, 81-80, following a free throw from sophomore guard Zoom Diallo. Blackwell would then hit a stepback jumper out of a timeout to give Wisconsin a little cushion, and what would prove to be the game-winner — Washington scored once more on a layup from Diallo, but that was the extent of the comeback attempt.

That shot also gave Blackwell the Big Men tournament single-game scoring record — that’s a lot of notoriety for a single bucket, especially this early in the tournament. Wisconsin will now face No.9 Illinois, the 4-seed of the B1G tourney, on Friday in the quarterfinals.

Valparaiso finishes 0-32

Miami (OH) could not complete the undefeated season, but Valparaiso’s women’s team managed the exact opposite: the Beacons lost to Drake, 81-55, in the first round of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, and that means Valparaiso went the entire season without a victory. The Beacons finish at 0-32, having lost 12 non-conference games as well as all 20 in Valley play.

Valparaiso shot just 33% here against Drake, and could manage just 8 offensive rebounds despite all the misses — the Bulldogs outrebounded the Beacons 47-29 for the game, and that, plus fouling Drake shooters enough to send them to the line 22 times, kept Valparaiso from having a real shot at picking up the upset here.

What’s especially wild about this campaign is that last year’s Valparaiso squad went 13-19, including 9-11 in conference play. Under 40% of its minutes in 2025-2026 belonged to returning players, however, and the Beacons ended up being among the 20-worst offenses and defenses in the country by points per game, while trailing toward the back in conference play, as well — it’s tough to even sneak in a win when you average allowing nearly 26 more points per game than you score.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that the Beacons are an exceptionally young team — there was a single senior on the active roster, leading scorer Fiona Connolly — and that in addition to losing a number of key players from the prior season to graduation and transfer, others were injured in 2025-2026. The 2026-2027 season will be better in part because it cannot be worse, but also because this was more a perfect storm of everything going wrong than necessarily the beginning of a trend for Valparaiso.

Iowa State eliminates Texas Tech

Iowa State might have been the 5-seed against 4-seed Texas Tech on Thursday in the Big 12 tournament, but the Cyclones are the No. 7 team in the nation, and the Red Raiders No. 16, as well as without their best player, JT Toppin. The game was already in Iowa State’s favor before sophomore guard Christian Anderson strained his groin on the glass floor of the tournament — a floor that will now not be used for the rest of the tourney — but that certainly didn’t help Texas Tech’s chances.

Iowa State would win, 75-53, powered by holding the Red Raiders to just 34% shooting while the Cyclones themselves shot 54%. Senior Joshua Jefferson was the standout, courtesy an 18-point, 13-rebound double-double with 6 assists, a steal and 2 blocks, as well as 8-for-13 shooting. Maybe most importantly, Iowa State got to use its bench for huge stretches, setting it up to be as rested as a team going for its third game in three days can be — the Cyclones take on No. 2 Arizona, the top seed in the tourney, in the Big 12 semifinals on Friday.