College Basketball Catchup: UConn Survives And Thrives, Tulsa Earns Ranked Upset

A freshman standout steps in for Sarah Strong. Oklahoma State let Tulsa hang around and paid for it. Tennessee and UCLA look a whole lot different, but it’s working so far.

Here’s what you need to know from yesterday’s slate of college basketball.

Once again, UConn star Sarah Strong got two quick fouls against a ranked Big Ten opponent and had to sit on the bench. This time, sophomore forward Blanca Quiñonez joined her with three fouls, leaving a real size gap on the floor for the Huskies against No. 17 Ohio State. It showed up in the score, too, with the Buckeyes cutting the lead to just three points in their joint absence. The reason things didn’t get even worse for UConn, however, was freshman center Olivia Vukosa. The 6-foot-5 center was one of the top recruits in the country last year, and she stepped up to show why that was.

Vukosa didn’t start the game, but on the strength of her first-half performance, coach Geno Auriemma had her start at center coming out of halftime. Vukosa ended up playing 29 minutes with eight points, six assists and 12 rebounds, including eight offensive boards that helped UConn while its shots were not falling in… at first.

Because of Vukosa’s performance — as well as a bench that, unlike against Michigan, stepped up when Strong and freshman guard Jovana Popovic were not — the Huskies still had the lead in the second half. And Strong was able to enter the game and do her thing: 25 points in 25 minutes, nine rebounds, five assists, three steals and zero additional fouls. Strong sank a career-best seven threes in eight attempts, and scored 20 points in the second half… matching Ohio State’s entire second-half output.

Strong didn’t have to check back into the game before it was wise to do so — Auriemma got to keep her on the bench and let the foul trouble pass, and in no small part thanks to Vukosa playing herself into starting the second half.

Iowa State transfer and senior center Audi Crooks led No. 19 Oklahoma State in scoring on Thursday with 17 points. The main issue is that no other Cowgirls added all that much offensively against Tulsa. Florida transfer Liv McGill was second on the team with 13 points and the bench added a combined 12 in 63 minutes of play — this lack of punch let Tulsa stick around and force overtime by outscoring Oklahoma State 13-10 in the fourth quarter. And the Golden Hurricane came out ahead there, too, to earn a 64-62 upset victory — the program’s first win ever over a ranked opponent.

Senior guard Mady Cartwright celebrated her birthday on Thursday with 17 points of her own as well as five rebounds and a pair of dimes across a team-high 41 minutes. Sophomore guard Alisha Peavy managed a 12-point, 11-board double-double that helped nullify her six turnovers somewhat. The starting unit did almost all the work here, with the bench contributing just five points but also a combined 37 minutes — Tulsa as a whole held Oklahoma State to 33% shooting, and that created the opening for this upset dub.

Nothing like setting a program record to earn the top performance. Virginia Tech freshman center Jessica Dimaro is 6-foot-4 and certainly played like it on Thursday against VCU — the latter part about the height, at least. Dimaro showed few signs of being just a handful of games into her collegiate career in the paint, not just scoring 23 points but outpacing the Hokies’ program record for rebounds by three with 24 boards. It’s the first 20-point, 20-rebound game in Hokies’ history.

Dimaro has been a rebounding machine to begin her freshman season, securing 13 in the season opener against North Carolina Central in 20 minutes of play, another seven in 18 minutes against Delaware, 14 in 27 minutes against James Madison and then setting a new record for Virginia Tech in her fourth game with 24 in 27 minutes. That’s nearly a rebound per minute! No surprise to anyone with some basic math skills, but Dimaro currently leads the ACC in rebounds per game with 14.5, and has 15.5 points per to go with those.

The Hokies would defeat VCU, 77-66, and a whole lot of credit for that goes to their standout freshman.

Raphel Laurent, a junior guard for Central Connecticut State, is in his first season of Division I ball, having played for Division III UMass Boston prior to this transition. He showed off why the Blue Devils brought him on board, exploding for a Division I-high of 35 points on Thursday against Sacred Heart.

Laurent as a scoring threat would be huge for Central Connecticut State, considering that its lone true scoring threat last year, Darin Smith Jr., transferred to Rutgers and the Big Ten for the 2026-2027 campaign.

Tennessee’s roster looks completely different this year, as coach Kim Caldwell had zero returning players from last season. She filled out the roster almost entirely from the transfer portal outside of a pair of freshmen. One of those 13 transfers was Kaylene Smikle, a guard out of Maryland. And on Thursday, she led all D-I women’s hoopers in scoring with 30 points.

Smikle played an abbreviated 2025-2026 season with the Terps, but she’s been an integral part of the 4-0 Lady Vols to this point. The 30 points are actually only the second-most she’s scored this season, as she dropped 31 on Duquesne in the season opener. SEC play will be the real test for Tennessee and Caldwell’s new-look roster, as it was a year ago — a test that the Lady Vols failed. The team literally could not be more different than it was, however, so maybe this time the outcome will also be different.

Speaking of new-look rosters, the defending national champions also had considerable turnover. In the case of UCLA, however, that turnover was because of success: a record five Bruins were picked in the first round of the WNBA Draft this spring, and six players were taken overall. Essentially, the championship core, the group that played the most minutes during March Madness and the national championship game itself.

That meant UCLA needed an injection of transfers to remain competitive, but Cori Close found them. Most notably star guard Addy Brown, part of the Iowa State exodus, made her way to UCLA, and showed off why that matters for the Bruins last night. Brown, when healthy — she was not for a significant chunk of last season — is a triple threat capable of dishing out assists, grabbing rebounds and scoring herself. Off the bench last night against Arizona, she led the Bruins in points with 18, while pulling down eight rebounds and racking up four dimes.

It’s not just newcomers getting it done, however. Sophomore forward Sienna Betts has a place in the starting lineup now with all the drafted players elsewhere, and she put up an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double against the Wildcats to help UCLA to the dub.

Throw in the returning senior Timea Gardiner, who missed the entire championship campaign with a knee injury but scored 16 points on Thursday, and UCLA has the makings of something. Just how good that something is remains to be seen, given the youth on the roster and the need for the transfers to fully integrate into the system. But the No. 10 Bruins are off to a 3-0 start in the title defense campaign.

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