2025 College Basketball Crown: Eric Dixon makes Villanova history; USC cruises
The inaugural College Basketball Crown continued Tuesday with four more first-round games.
Cincinnati kicked the day off with a pretty decisive win, taking down DePaul, 83-61. The Oregon State–UCF game was much more competitive, with 17 lead changes throughout the afternoon. In the end, one team had to win and UCF came away with a 76-75 victory. The Bearcats and Knights will play Thursday.
Villanova rolled past Colorado behind Eric Dixon’s record-setting game. The Wildcats will face USC in the quarterfinals after the Trojans took care of business against Tulane.
Tuesday is the final day of Round 1 after four first-round games took place on Monday. The second round will be held on Wednesday and Thursday as the tournament continues through Sunday, April 6 on FOX and FS1.
Here are the highlights from Tuesday’s games!
USC stays in control all night vs. Tulane in 89-60 win
Rashaun Agee exploded for 27 points as USC ran past Tulane on Tuesday night for an 89-60 win. The Trojans’ senior forward, who was 10-of-12 from the floor and 3-of-4 from the 3-point line, picked up where he left off in March. In his previous five games, Agee had averaged 16.6 points, with two 20+point outings.
Agee had a monster all-around game, with nine rebounds and four blocks.
The Green Wave managed to get within 10 points with 9:03 remaining, but then the Trojans went on a 27-9 run to close out the win. They never trailed.
At halftime, USC was up 39-24 and star Desmond Claude had just five points on 2-of-8 shooting at that point, but it hardly mattered.
Tulane had more turnovers (13) than made field goals (8) in the first half and two players in foul trouble. Tyler Ringgold and Percy Daniels each had four fouls before the break.
But the shorthanded Green Wave didn’t have much of a choice, with five players already in the transfer portal. That includes two starters: 6-foot-8 Kaleb Banks, who averaged 14.7 points and a team-high 6.7 rebounds per game, and Kam Williams, who has already made a decision to transfer to Kentucky.
Rowan Brumbaugh, Tulane’s leading scorer, still played and had 11 points. Asher Woods paced the Green Wave with 18 points.
USC was also down a couple of starters. Wesley Yates III was in a walking boot and Chibuzo Agbo was unavailable.
It’s been 10 years since Ron Hunter fell off his stool when his son, RJ Hunter, made a game-winning shot for Georgia State in the NCAA Tournament. The elder Hunter is now the head coach of Tulane, while RJ is a voluntary assistant coach.
Eric Dixon became Villanova’s all-time leading scorer, passing Kerry Kittles’ previous record of 2,243 points, in the first half of the Wildcats’ 85-64 win over Colorado. The fifth-year senior entered Tuesday’s game with 2,235 career points, and he reached 10 points with just under four minutes left until halftime.
Coincidentally, Dixon set the record on the 40th anniversary of Villanova’s upset national championship win over Georgetown.
Dixon had 13 points in the first half, helping the Wildcats build a 45-30 lead. He finished with 22 points and will have a chance to add to his program record in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
Villanova started breaking the game open with 11 minutes left in the first half and never looked back. Dixon was the star attraction, but Wooga Poplar was actually the game’s top scorer, with 24 points. He had 16 points on 8-of-10 shooting at halftime.
In his final collegiate game, senior center Elijah Malone paced the Buffaloes with 17 points. He also dished out a late assist to walk-on Jack Pease, who nailed a 3-pointer before the final buzzer. The only other Colorado player to reach double digits was RJ Smith.
Mike Nardi is coaching the Wildcats in this tournament following Kyle Neptune’s dismissal. Nardi was named the interim coach two weeks before Kevin Willard was officially hired as the program’s next men’s basketball coach.
After the Knights and Beavers traded the lead 17 times throughout the game, it was no surprise that this one came down to the final seconds. With UCF holding a slim 76-75 lead, Oregon State had a chance for the winning shot. But OSU coach Wayne Tinkle took a timeout with just 5.4 seconds left, right before his team made what would’ve been the go-ahead basket.
The Beavers got another chance after the timeout, but Liutauras Lelevicius missed the 3-point shot and the Knights held on.
The transfer portal has hit both of these teams hard. Oregon State was missing its top three scorers this season — Michael Rataj, Nate Kingz and Parsa Fallah — while UCF was without Keyshawn Hall, who averaged a team-high 18.8 points per game this season.
But the Knights had Nils Machowski, who has already entered his name in the transfer portal but decided to play in the tournament. He tied a career high with 13 points in the first half alone and finished with 15 points. Machowski was one of four UCF players to hit double figures. Darius Johnson and Tyler Hendricks also had 15 points, while Moustapha Thiam finished with 10 points.
Oregon State jumped out to a 19-12 lead but UCF answered with a 13-4 run. From that point, the two teams went back and forth for most of the first half until the Knights closed out the final two minutes with seven straight points to take a 45-36 advantage into the break.
Lelevicius was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field for nine points at halftime. He ended up with a game-high 20 points. Freshman Maxim Logue averaged 2.1 points per game during the regular season. He came up big for the Beavers with his first double-double: 18 points and 10 rebounds.
Cincinnati uses strong defensive first half to propel its offense in second half and take down DePaul
The Bearcats are moving on to the second round of the College Basketball Crown following a pretty decisive victory.
After both teams went back and forth for the first 10 minutes of Tuesday’s game, Cincinnati outscored DePaul, 23-11, to close out the first half and take a 33-23 lead into the halftime break. Cincinnati used its defense to build a lead, with DePaul shooting just 8-of-25 (32%) from the field and committing eight turnovers in the first 20 minutes of play.
Cincinnati’s Aziz Bandaogo runs the court and throws down UNREAL alley-oop jam vs. DePaul
Cincinnati’s offense wasn’t great in the first half, either. It shot just 13-of-32 (40.6%) from the field and 2-of-9 (22.2%) from 3-point range, while standout guard Jizzle James only had five points on 2-of-8 (25%) shooting in the first half. But it turned things around offensively in the second half, with James finding more of a rhythm as he scored eight points and dished out a pair of assists in the second half.
James was just one of a handful of contributors, though, to Cincinnati’s balanced attack. He was one of six Bearcats to finish Tuesday’s game in double figures. An 8-0 run spearheaded by bench guard Dan Skillings helped Cincinnati expand its lead to 20 early in the second half, while another run later on helped Cincinnati go up by as much as 27.
Those runs led to a 50-point second half for Cincinnati, which shot 20-of-35 (57.1%) from the field and 7-of-12 from deep (58.3%) in that span. Forward Dillon Mitchell led the Bearcats in scoring with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting, but his biggest impact might have come defensively. He had three steals as Cincinnati’s defense continued to play strong in the game’s final 20 minutes.
Day Day Thomas was also a part of the Bearcats’ second-half offensive outburst and lockdown defensive performance. He had seven steals, giving him a new career high. DePaul committed 10 more turnovers in the second half, allowing Cincinnati to cruise to victory.
DePaul Blue Demons vs. Cincinnati Bearcats The Crown Highlights | CBB on FOX
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