College Basketball

Last Night in College Basketball: A 61-Foot Heave Led to a Triple-OT Thriller

Published Dec. 19, 2025 11:40 a.m. ET

Men's college basketball, women's college basketball – there's no shortage of college ball, every night.

Don't worry, we're here to help you figure out what you missed but shouldn't have. Here are all the best moments from last night in college basketball.

A stunning 3-overtime affair

Is there anything quite like triple-overtime basketball? Everyone is exhausted by that point, whether on the court or in the stands or at home watching. You can’t give up if you’re playing, though, and you can’t stop watching if you aren’t. Thursday night provided one such experience, with Bradley and Indiana State going three overtimes deep before a winner was declared in a Missouri Valley Conference matchup.

You cannot exaggerate the drama in this one, either. Bradley was behind in the first half, 41-36, but came back strong in the second and was ahead 74-71 with one second left in the game. Indiana State fouled senior forward AJ Smith in an attempt to get the ball back, and Smith missed both free throws. Still, there was just one second left. How much damage could the Sycamores do in that time? The ball ended up in junior guard — and bench player — Jo Van Buggenhout’s hands with one second still left on the clock, and he hit a 61-foot desperation heave from in front of the logo — and banked — to tie the game at 74 and send it to overtime.

Incredible. And there were still three more of these to go. Indiana ended up taking a 4-point lead about 90 seconds into the first overtime, but Bradley kept fighting back, and this time around they hit both free throws with little time left to tie things once more. Junior guard Camp Wagner missed a layup for Indiana State as time expired, and it was on to the second overtime.

This time around, the lead changes were constant, with five in the first three minutes and then three more before there were just 26 seconds left on the clock following a Montana Wheeler 3-pointer for Bradley to go up 92-91. Indiana State would tie it by hitting one of two free throws, and Wheeler would miss a 23-footer as time expired, bringing them to the third OT.

This overtime did not play like the others: Bradley stepped on the gas immediately, and Indiana State could no longer keep up. Sophomore guard Timoty van der Knaap hit a three with an assist from the freshman Wheeler 17 seconds in, and then hit a layup shortly after. Wheeler — who, along with van der Knaap, started the game on the bench — hit a pair of free throws, then van der Knaap drained a turnaround jumper. Wheeler would hit another two free throws with 38 seconds left to put Bradley up 105-99, and that was that. The Braves would score a few more to put even more distance between them and Indiana State, but the Sycamores had nothing left at that point.

What a game. What a start to conference play in the MVC for these two teams. And what a huge road win for Bradley, which is likely going to need to dominate their conference for a chance at continuing their season in March. More games like this one will help them get there.

South Carolina is healthy. Watch out.

For your consideration: Joyce Edwards.

Edwards led the South Carolina attack on Thursday, as the sophomore forward led all scorers with 34 points on 14-for-15 shooting while pulling down 5 rebounds, blocking a pair of shots and picking up 2 an assist and a steal each. South Florida isn’t some low-level opponent, but a team that, as noted in this week’s look at the NET rankings, was on the bubble entering this matchup. No. 3 South Carolina absolutely dominated, 103-44, despite this, and South Florida is now 6-6 on the season with all but one of those losses coming against Quad 1 teams like South Carolina.

The Gamecocks were led by Edwards, yes, but every other starter scored between 11 and 16 points, with senior center Madina Okot picking up a double-double on 12 points and 10 rebounds. Despite the beatdown, coach Dawn Staley didn’t pull the starters particularly early, with all of them playing between 21 and 28 minutes while the bench had 62 as a unit, and this despite it being the first game in nearly a month where she’s had an empty injury report and full bench.

South Carolina was making a point on Thursday — they are not to be lost in the conversation as UCLA gets healthy, as Texas shows a sudden ability to score and as UConn rips through non-conference and conference opponents alike. The top of women’s college basketball is just loaded right now, and it rules.

36 was Thursday’s magic number for points

Your leader in scoring on Thursday came by way of a three-way tie. UC Irvine’s Hunter Hernandez, Jackson State’s Daeshun Ruffin and Lindenwood’s Anias Futrell all scored 36 points on Thursday night to lead Division I.

Hernandez added 6 rebounds and an assist to her 36 points, with the senior guard’s performance pushing the Anteaters past the UTEP Miners, 93-72, on the road. The 36 points marked a career-high for her, and the W was UC Irvine’s program-record 10th straight. They are now 11-2 and right on the bubble, as they are 75th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET. Hernandez has been a huge part of UC Irvine’s success in the early going — she leads the Big West in total points scored, and has a career-high 17.9 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.

As for Ruffin, he added a pair of rebounds and steals each, a block and 6 assists to his 36 points. Jackson State was not as fortunate as UC Irvine, however, as they would lose to Hampton, 84-77, despite Ruffin’s huge game.

Fifth-year guard Jayme Mitchell added 16 points with 5 boards, and sophomore guard Dorian McMillan had 11 with 5, but the rest of Jackson State scored a combined 14 points. As a team, they shot 48%, but much of that can be contributed to Ruffin for shooting 13-for-18 — the rest of the Tigers shot 37.5%.

Just one more decent performance could have made Ruffin the hero with a huge game in a close win, but it was Hampton that got that kind of help from senior guard Christian Watson, who scored 18 points off the bench in 28 minutes. Or, 8 more points than the entire Jackson State bench managed as a unit.

A 1-on-1 Ohio Valley shootout

As said, Anias Futrell tied for the night’s lead in points with 36 — which was also a career-high — but that performance requires some context and its own section. Lindenwood would win against Western Illinois, 92-76, in a game where two players basically tried to will their teams to victory. Futrell was obviously that player for Lindenwood — in addition to the 36 points, he also had 8 rebounds and 5 assists, and shot 8-for-13 from three — but for Western Illinois it was Antwaun Massey. The senior forward, a transfer from Southern Illinois who previously played in juco, was averaging just under 9 points per game entering play on Thursday, but against Lindenwood he would explode for 33 points, setting a new career-high that surpassed the 29 he scored earlier in the season. Massey added 5 rebounds, a steal and a block to his night, and if he could have hit a few more free throws — he went just 3-for-10 from the line — might have even been the fourth 36-point player of the night, if not the sole leader. While we’re on the subject, Futrell missed both of his, too.

The real difference was that one had help and the other did not, and it’s pretty evident which is which based on the score. Junior guard Lucas Lorenzen chipped in 18 points to assist Massey, but no one else reached double-digit scoring, while the bench contributed 7 combined points. The Leathernecks scored 76 points, and the Massey/Lorenzen combo accounted for 51 of them.

Lindenwood didn’t get much from their bench, either, but didn’t need it: sophomore guards Dontrez Williams and Jadis Jones both scored 18 points, while senior center Milos Nenadic added 11. Every starter picked up between 4 and 8 rebounds, and the Lions as a unit had 20 assists to their 12 turnovers and shot 47% from three. They are now 7-4 on the season, winners of five-straight and 2-0 in Ohio Valley Conference play.

No. 25 Georgia takes care of business

There was just one ranked team in action on the men’s side on Thursday, and that was No. 25 Georgia. They took on Western Carolina at home, and were in control from the jump: the game began with a 3-pointer out of the hands of sophomore guard Jeremiah Wilkinson, and Georgia kept that lead for the duration.

Wilkinson ended up as the game-high leader in points with 26 on 7-for-11 shooting, with the bulk of that coming on threes (4-for-6) and free throws (8-for-9). He didn’t do all that much besides that, with 2 assists and a steal, but Georgia didn’t need more, either. They outrebounded Western Carolina, turned the ball over less, moved the ball better and more effectively and shot 59% as a team while outshooting their opponents from deep both in volume and accuracy.

Sophomore center Somtochukwu Cyril had a double-double for Georgia with 14 points and a game-high 10 rebounds, while junior guard Marcus Millender scored 17 off the bench in 19 minutes — including a perfect 8-for-8 from the line — and still had time leftover for 3 assists. Georgia looked dominant up and down the roster — as they should have against Western Carolina — but as we know in college basketball, "should have" doesn’t always mean "did."

Nestor continues to rip ‘em down

Megan Nestor is a senior for North Texas, but this is her first year playing at the NCAA level — previously, she played for the NAIA school, Wayland Baptist, where she was a First-Team All-American last season before transferring to the Mean Green. You might remember that Nestor had a 34-point, 31-rebound game earlier this month, as well — just the third such game in Division I in the last 45 years.

On Thursday, Nestor didn’t reach those levels again — no one should expect her to, considering — but she did log a double-double before the first half even ended, and finished with 15 points and a Division I-high 17 rebounds on the night. That wasn’t enough for North Texas to win — they would lose to Oral Roberts, 74-73 — but Nestor is more than showing she can hang at this level.

She’s leading the American Conference in field goal percentage at 59.6% and scoring 12.8 points per game in 24.4 minutes. She’s also leading the conference in rebounds per game, at 12.0, and Thursday marked her sixth game of the season with at least 10 boards, and fourth with at least 15. North Texas is playing her more minutes now than at the start of the year, too, so these averages should keep climbing — as is, she’s fourth in all of Division I women’s basketball in rebounds per game, behind only NC State’s Khamil Pierre, Troy’s Zay Dyer and College of Charleston’s Grace Ezebilo.

Buckeyes take down Norfolk State with teamwork

No. 21 Ohio State took on Norfolk State on Thursday, and dispatched them fairly easily, 79-45. It was the kind of game that lets you get a sense of the weapons at the Buckeyes’ disposal, as no single player took over the game, and just one starter — junior guard Kennedy Cambridge — even played more than 20 minutes. This was about getting reps in for the team as a whole: the bench ended up scoring 39 of 79 points on 14-for-26 shooting, while grabbing 22 rebounds. They were a little sloppier on the turnover side with 9, but they did steal the ball 7 times and added 6 assists, too. All 11 players who took the floor scored and rebounded at least once, with every one of them hitting one field goal minimum.

Now, Ohio State might have a bunch of options here, but they do need to tighten things up against better teams: if Norfolk State is making you turn the ball over that much, and no one emerges as a major scoring threat, it is a little worrisome. Still, that’s what these kinds of tune-up games are for, so that Ohio State is in a better position when conference games are a constant.

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