College basketball season got started yesterday, and while there were no ranked vs. ranked men’s games, there were still plenty of fascinating results, including an upset of the defending women’s champions. Let’s look at a few of them.

No. 20 Colorado 92, No. 1 LSU 78 (women)

Defending champion LSU was upset to open the season thanks to some hot shooting by the Buffaloes. Colorado made 53.2% of its shots and was 10-for-23 from three. The Tigers, by comparison, hit 43.9% of their shots and were just 4-for-10 from deep.

After the game, coach Kim Mulkey called her team out—not for missing shots but for what she believed was a lack of toughness.

“You live with poor shooting; you live with just a tough night,” Mulkey said. “What I don’t live with is just guts, fight and physical play. You got that dog in you. I just didn’t think we had that tonight. You needed more to have that fight within.

No. 6 South Carolina 100, No. 10 Notre Dame 71 (women)

Any doubts about South Carolina’s ability to pick up where it left off after losing four senior starters to the WNBA draft were brushed aside with the Gamecocks’ dominant win over Notre Dame in Paris.

Center Kamilla Cardoso (the lone returning starter from last year) had a monster game for South Carolina, scoring 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting with 15 rebounds and four blocks. It was two freshmen who stole the show, though. The Irish’s Hannah Hidalgo had 31 points, and the Gamecocks’ MiLaysia Fulwiley had 17 off the bench, including one of the prettiest finishes at the rim you’ll ever see. The two freshmen’s play caught the eye of Kevin Durant, who tweeted during the game, “Hidalgo and Fulwiley moving DIFFERENT out here.”

No. 4 Michigan State 76, James Madison 79 (men)

The Spartans hold the dubious distinction of being the only ranked men’s team to lose last night, falling in overtime to James Madison. MSU senior Tyson Walker went off for 35 points, but the rest of the team couldn’t buy a basket. Coen Carr was the only other Spartan to score in double figures as Michigan State shot 36.1% from the floor as a team. The Spartans were an atrocious 1-for-20 from three and hit just 62.7% of their free throw attempts. The Dukes weren’t much better (36.8% from the field and 27.6% from three), but they hit their free throws and came away with a massive upset.

Louisville 94, UMBC 93 (men)

The fall of Louisville men’s basketball has fascinated me for years now. Once one of college basketball’s most consistently reliable programs, the Cardinals hit rock bottom last season at 4–28. They were easily the worst power-conference team in the nation and one of the worst teams in Division I, ranked 290th in KenPom.

And things aren’t looking better this year. Louisville lost an exhibition game to D-II Kentucky Wesleyan last week and barely survived last night against UMBC. The go-ahead basket came on an alley-oop after a sloppy possession, and the Cardinals escaped with the victory after UMBC missed a free throw that would have tied the game.

It took Louisville until Dec. 14 to win its first game last year, so I guess this is an improvement. But playing a squeaker against an America East Conference team to open the season doesn’t bode well for the rest of the Cardinals’ year.

Mobile 83, South Alabama 74 (men)

This might not jump off the page as something worth paying attention to, but it isn’t every day that a D-I team gets dropped by an NAIA school. The University of Mobile has fewer than 2,000 students and isn’t an NAIA powerhouse. The Rams went 18–11 last year and lost to South Alabama 97–59. In fact, USA played Mobile in each of the past six seasons, and the Jaguars won handily each time. Mobile broke the streak last night, though, with a convincing victory that was a reminder that anything can happen in college basketball.

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The top five...

… things I saw last night:

5. 50-year-old Ichiro Suzuki’s breaking a window in batting practice at a high school.

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger feeding a donkey on the ManningCast.

3. Isaiah Jackson’s block on Victor Wembanyama.

2. Jaylen Brown’s ferocious dunk right in Rudy Gobert’s face.

1. Purdue’s 7'4" Zach Edey taking the opening tip against Samford’s 5'8" Dallas Graziani.

SIQ

On this day in 1999, Tiger Woods won the WGC American Express Championship, his fourth consecutive win on the PGA Tour. Before Woods, who was the last golfer to win four tournaments in a row?