Last Night in College Basketball: Vandy's Byington is Unreal Before New Year's

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Vanderbilt’s coach is something before New Year’s

Vanderbilt installed Mark Byington as the coach before the 2024-2025 season, and all he’s done since then is win. Which is what he was brought in for in the first place: in his final year at James Madison, Byington’s Dukes won a program-record 32 games and earned their first trip to the NCAA Tournament in March since 1983, which is the kind of turnaround that Vandy — which went 9-23 the same season and finished 14th in the SEC — needed when they hired Byington. 

On Monday, Vanderbilt defeated New Haven, 96-53, in the Commodores’ final game of 2025. The win made Byington a combined 38-1 over the last three seasons in pre-New Year’s games: he’s 13-0 this season with Vanderbilt, which also went 12-1 last season prior to the calendar turning over, and in his final season with James Madison the Dukes were also 13-0.

Byington is clearly prepared for these largely non-conference affairs, and it’s not even necessarily just something from the last three seasons. Per FOX Sports research, if you go back to Byington’s second season at JMU, he is 57-7 in October-December games, which is tied for the third- best record in that span among all Division I coaches, min. 25 games. And turning the clock back further to his first season at JMU brings that figure to 60-10 in October-December games, the fourth-best record in that span among all D-I coaches, min. 30 games.

As is, over the last three seasons, his .974 win percentage before the New Year ranks first and it also isn’t particularly close: just two other coaches are even over 90% and far enough away that even if Vandy had lost on Monday, Byington still would have been comfortably ahead. Those two coaches are Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger (34-3, .919) and Ben McCollum for Iowa and Drake (22-2, .917).

Vanderbilt is undefeated heading into conference season. They have 13 wins when, just two seasons ago and before Byington was hired, they won 9 total. The poll has the Commodores ranked No. 11, but the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, sees them as even better than that, as the seventh-best team in men’s basketball. What a turnaround for the school, and in such a short time, too — they aren’t likely to be much easier to defeat after the New Year, at this rate, not with the way they have been playing under Bynington.

USC defeats undefeated Nebraska

Monday night featured a significant Big Ten matchup between undefeated No. 20 Nebraska and No. 17 USC, and it did not disappoint. While Nebraska went up early, with a 20-12 first quarter, the Trojans stormed back in the second quarter and then outplayed the Huskers thoroughly in the third, 29-14, putting Nebraska down 65-52 in the fourth.

Nebraska kept fighting back, though, and while they had a better fourth quarter than USC did — the Huskers outscored them in the final frame, 14-9, holding USC to their lowest point output in any quarter of the game — it wasn’t enough to overcome that deficit. USC would win, 74-66, improving to 10-3 — and 2-0 in Big Ten play — while handing Nebraska its first loss of the 2025-2026 season.

USC managed this almost entirely with their starting five: just four players appeared off of the bench, and only one — junior guard Malia Samuels — picked up significant minutes, as she had 25 of the 48 total they played. Three of USC’s starters played for at least 31 minutes, with sophomore guard Kennedy Smith leading the team with 35, and both she and freshman guard Jazzy Davidson scored a team-high 17 points, with the pair also just missing double-doubles at 9 and 8 rebounds, respectively. 

Nebraska stayed in the game in large part thanks to their fantastic free-throw shooting, with 19-of-21 going in, but they hit just 5-of-17 threes and shot 40% overall, making catching up to USC difficult especially with the Trojans outrebounding the Cornhuskers, converting more turnovers into points and dominating in the paint, 44-28.

That all being said, it’s just one loss for Nebraska in a game where too much didn’t go their way. That the game was as close as it was despite that cold stretch in the middle where the Huskers were dominated — and that they shut down the Trojans in the fourth — are both promising signs as conference season gets going for real, but credit USC for the tough W on the road, too.

Two 20-rebound games!

Monday night featured a pair of 20-plus-rebound games, one on the men’s side and the other on the women’s. For the former, Cincinnati forward Baba Miller pulled down 21 rebounds while adding 11 points, 7 assists, a steal and 2 blocks in an 89-62 win over Lipscomb. Miller had 21 rebounds compared to Lipscomb's 31, and also nearly outrebounded his entire time: the rest of the Bearcats had 24 rebounds combined.

Then there was Army’s Kya Smith. The junior forward collected a Monday-night high of 22 rebounds, with 27 points, 2 assists, 2 steals and a block to go with it. Army needed every bit of that performance, too, as it defeated Howard 64-56 even with Smith setting career-high marks in both points and rebounds.

Smith shot 6-for-10 from the field and missed her lone 3-point attempt, but free throws were where she thrived. She was a perfect 15-for-15 from the line — also a career-best for Smith — and that mattered on a night where the Black Knights shot 34% from the field and just 17% on threes. If Army hadn’t shot 89% on free throws — 24-for-27 — Howard would have smoked them.

They did shoot that accurately, though, and Smith was that good both from the line and on the glass, so Army is now 9-2, while the Bison dropped to 10-6 and under .500 on the road.

Michigan outlasts Oregon in double-overtime

No. 6 Michigan has been tested this season, with games against ranked Notre Dame as well as a loss — a real close loss — to No. 1 UConn. On Monday, they faced off against Oregon, a team that isn’t ranked in the poll, no, but did sit 25th in the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, entering play against the Wolverines. They are a challenge basically on par with the Fighting Irish, and certainly played like it against Michigan.

It took two overtimes for the Wolverines to finally dispose of the Ducks, but what really needed to happen was for Michigan to come back from their serious second-half collapse. Michigan was up 21-10 after the first quarter, and then 44-28 at the half, but Oregon refused to go away. They held Michigan to just 25 points in the second half — right around what they had scored in the previous quarters each — and that allowed them to catch up with 1:29 left in the game, courtesy a layup from sophomore forward Ehis Etute that made it 69-69. It would remain scoreless from that point forward until overtime, as star sophomore guard Syla Swords missed Michigan’s final shot of regulation.

The Wolverines would hit their final shot in the first overtime, however, forcing the second one: sophomore guard Olivia Olson, who had a rough 6-for-20 night shooting overall, hit a layup with six seconds left on the clock to tie things at 76-76 in what had been a defense-heavy first overtime. 

From there, the offenses took over. Michigan would score 16 points over the second OT’s five minutes, and while Oregon also saw its offense wake up a bit to score 11, that just wasn’t enough to keep things going. Swords hit a three early in the second OT, assisted on a later layup and made 3-of-4 free throws in the period, quite the exclamation point on what ended up being a 47-minute performance for the sophomore. She led Michigan with 18 points while contributing 7 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals, and while she was also just 5-for-16 on the night — Olson wasn’t the only Michigan player missing her shots — she started hitting them again when the Wolverines desperately needed it, and the result was their 11th win of the year and a dub against a fellow Big Ten team — and a difficult opponent on the road, at that.

32 points for Buckley

New Orleans senior guard Jakevion Buckley played all 40 minutes against UT Rio Grande in a Southland conference matchup, and he made them count. He scored a career-high 32 points that also led all Division I scorers on Monday, and added 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals to that impressive figure.

The Privateers would pick up the W thanks to Buckley, 85-69, and it’s a good thing he went off like that given that the next-highest scorer on New Orleans put up a dozen points. Also good for New Orleans is that UT Rio Grande couldn’t put together that much offense outside of junior guard Koree Cotton, who had 24 points on 8-for-15 shooting as one of just two players to reach double-digits for the Vaqueros.

Merrimack comes back from down 15 in defensive showdown

This Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference matchup between Merrimack and Mount St. Mary’s was looking like a disaster for the Warriors early in the third quarter. Merrimack’s offense had vanished in the second quarter, where they managed just 8 points, but their defense had allowed them to keep within 7 at the half. Until all of a sudden even that wasn’t working, and the Warriors were down 15 with 6:41 to go in the third quarter following a pair of free throws from junior guard Alana Powell, in part because senior guard Lydia Melaschenko just could not get going from three until late despite trying again and again.

Merrimack turned it back on after that point, though: they had a mere 25 points in the game and had scored once in the quarter by the time the Mountaineer’s lead stretched to 15, and finished the third quarter tied 45-45 following a 20-point outburst over those six-plus minutes. Madison Roman didn’t do it alone, but she took charge here: she scored 8 of her game-high 20 points in the third after Merrimack hit their nadir, and was one of two Warriors with a double-double thanks to also pulling down 14 rebounds. Orayle Keifer, a senior forward who transferred from Northeastern for this season, was the other with 14 points and 11 rebounds that included a number of clutch free throws in the fourth to keep Mount St. Mary at bay.

Merrimack took the lead with 6:11 to go when a Melaschenko three did hit, and another put them up 55-50 with 2:38 left. Mount St. Mary’s kept fighting back, but sophomore guard Gabrielle Kennerly only had so many big shots left in the tank as time wound down, and Merrimack would hold on 60-55 for the comeback, conference win.

Logo!

Check out this logo three from Rutgers junior Jamichael Davis, in its 65-50 win over Delaware State.

That’s a hell of a shot for someone who scored just 6 points on the night! Both of his makes were threes, though, and he made them count while also pulling down 6 boards with a steal and a block in his 31 minutes. A quiet 31 minutes? Not when they included a shot like that one. 

No. 8 Houston ekes out a win

Monday was the return from the Christmas break for most of the men’s teams, including a ton of ranked ones: 13 of the 25 ranked squads were in action, and in nearly every case they also had a dominant win that reminded you of just how good they are. "Nearly," because No. 8 Houston did not hit the century mark or blow out its opponent like the rest of the bunch. Instead, the Cougars defeated Middle Tennessee, 69-60, in a game with two close halves where free throws were the difference.

Houston just couldn’t get anyone to take over the game offensively: freshman guard Kingston Flemings led the Cougars with 15 points, which is not ideal, and becomes even less ideal when you see that he outscored the bench in their 55 minutes of play. The starters missed just one of their 14 free-throw attempts, though, and that helped smooth over that Middle Tennessee shot better from the field and played — fouls aside — quality defense against Houston.

Hey, it happens sometimes, but a 9-point win against a team that isn’t close to being on the bubble is going to stick out on a night when Michigan, Purdue, Michigan State, Alabama and Arkansas all score over 100 points, when nearly the entire slate takes care of business by at least 15 points while scoring near or over 90 themselves.

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