Freshman guard Neoklis Avdalas has jump-started Virginia Tech, and the Hokies will look to build on an unbeaten start in a matchup with Bryant Wednesday night in Blacksburg, Va.

Only four games into his career, the 6-foot-9 Greek point guard has already impressed. Avdalas is averaging 16.3 points and 6.0 assists per game. The Hokies are scoring 95.8 points per game, anchored by five players averaging double-digit points.

Virginia Tech (4-0) beat Charlotte 84-76 on Sunday.

Avdalas was held to 10 points, but was one of four Hokies who scored in double figures, led by 21 points and four 3-pointers from Jailen Bedford. Tobi Lawal, who is averaging 11.8 rebounds per game, added 18 points and 15 boards in the victory.

“We’re playing differently because of Avdalas,” said Hokies coach Mike Young. “This is the makings of a really good ball-handling team, passing team. They move well and that’s really hard for teams to guard.”

Bryant (1-3), on the other hand, has struggled mightily on the offensive end in its first four games. The Bulldogs of the America East Conference are 353rd nationally in scoring at 60.8 points per game and are 357th in field goal percentage at 34.7%.

The Bulldogs are led by their own 6-9 freshman import guard, Timofei Rudovskii, who hails from Russia. Rudovskii is averaging 13.3 points and 4.3 rebounds per game.

Bryant is coming off a 68-50 loss to Valparaiso on Sunday. The Bulldogs led 30-22 at the half but were outscored 46-20 after intermission. Rudovskii scored 13 points and no other Bryant player topped six points in the game. The Bulldogs were 8-for-31 shooting in the second half and just 27.7% overall.

“Our job is to hold them accountable,” said Bryant coach Jamion Christian earlier this season. “But I think you can always wrap truth with hope. … If we’re able to do that, we can keep them bread-crumbing toward the goal that we want to get to.”

-Field Level Media

When Maryland takes on visiting Mount St. Mary’s Wednesday in College Park, Md., the Terrapins will be without their top threat Pharrel Payne.

The Texas A&M transfer, who is putting up team highs of 18.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, came away with a terrifying injury in Maryland’s 89-82 win Saturday at Marquette, which will likely keep him on the sidelines for an extended period.

After scoring on a driving two-fisted slam, Payne slipped as he returned to the floor, doing a straddle split and sustaining an apparent hip injury.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Maryland (3-1) had yet to reveal Payne’s status.

“I try to stay away from ever saying anything publicly regarding the health of any of our guys,” coach Buzz Williams said in a radio interview on Monday.

After watching their star leave the floor on a stretcher with 12:16 left against Marquette, the inspired Terrapins played with purpose. Payne’s dunk triggered a 32-13 run which transformed a seven-point deficit into a 12-point lead.

Maryland now will depend on Kansas transfer David Coit and Washington State transfer Isaiah Watts. On Saturday, the backcourt duo scored 19 and 18 points respectively, combining to hit 7 of 11 attempts from 3-point range.

The Terrapins also hope for the return of Myles Rice, who has been limited because of an ankle injury. In his lone appearance this season, the Indiana transfer had 19 points and seven rebounds in a loss to Georgetown.

Mount St. Mary’s (1-3), which advanced to the NCAA Tournament last year, are expected to be a challenge for Maryland.

The Mountaineers of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference have been competitive in losses at power conference schools West Virginia and Cincinnati, falling by 16 and 17 points respectively.

With the top five scorers from last year’s team gone, Santa Clara transfer Luke McEldon and Western Illinois transfer Trey Deveaux have helped fill the void. Both are averaging 11 points per game.

“With a team with so many new pieces, there’s a lot of learning how to win,” Mount St. Mary’s coach Donny Lind said.

The top returning player is Xavier Lipscomb (10.8 points per game), who paces the Mountaineers in rebounds (6.3), assists (4.3) and steals (1.3).

-Field Level Media

Villanova and the nation’s leading rebounder will make their first trip up the Main Line to renovated Glaser Arena in Philadelphia to take on Big 5 rival La Salle on Wednesday night.

The game is part of the Big 5 Classic. Both teams are in the three-team Pod 1, with the series concluding at the Xfinity Mobile Center with a tripleheader on Dec. 6.

Villanova has won three games in a row under new coach Kevin Willard and has five players averaging in double figures in scoring, including James Madison transfer Bryce Lindsay, who is at 23 points per game and is shooting 50% from 3-point range.

“I think we are doing a lot of good things offensively,” Willard said after his team’s 87-77 win over Duquesne on Saturday. “We are sharing the ball, but we really struggle defensively. If we can ever get our defense to be good with what our offense is doing, that would be good for us.”

Villanova’s Duke Brennan, a 6-foot-10 senior, leads the nation with an average 14.8 rebounds a game. The Wildcats are fourth in the country in offensive rebounding, but Brennan echoed his coach’s sentiments about getting better on defense.

“I feel like we have to communicate better,” Brennan said. “I don’t talk quick enough, and my guy can’t react quick enough to come over. We have to talk better.”

La Salle enters Wednesday’s contest averaging 73 points a game and also allowing 73. The Explorers have lost their last two games, including 83-69 Saturday vs. Penn State. The Nittany Lions went on a 20-0 run in the first half and led by as many as 21 points.

The Explorers have been without two injured players who had expected to contribute. Point guard Jaden Johnson has yet to play, and Truth Harris, who came over with new La Salle coach Darris Nichols from Radford, suffered a foot injury in the season opener.

Freshman Ashton Walker has had to play point guard. He’s averaged just under 10 points, and had four turnovers against Penn State.

“A big thing is getting some more handlers back healthy. Ashton Walker and Eric Acker are getting worn down and picked up full court every game,” Nichols said. “Guys are getting used to playing with each other. You build that together in game situations. It’s different in practice, but you try to simulate what it can be.”

Senior guard Jaeden Marshall leads the Explorers with an average of 15.3 points a game.

La Salle hasn’t had a winning season since 2014-15. Glaser Arena reopened in 2024 on the La Salle campus and seats about 3,000. The two schools are less than 15 miles apart but haven’t met in basketball since 2022.

–Field Level Media

Scoring hasn’t been a problem for Penn State this season, but it might be more of a challenge when the Nittany Lions take on Harvard on Wednesday night in University Park, Pa.

Harvard (4-1) will enter that matchup leading the Ivy League in points allowed per game (61.6). Three of Harvard’s opponents this season failed to score more than 54 points.

Penn State (4-0) is shooting 52.1 percent from the field, and has four players averaging in double figures: freshman guard Melih Tunca (15.5), freshman guard Kayden Mingo (15.3), junior guard Freddie Dilione V (12.3) and sophomore guard Dominick Stewart (10.5). Tunca and Mingo have reached double figures in each of Penn State’s four games.

“It has to be a hot basketball,” Penn State coach Mike Rhoades said. “You’re hard to guard when the ball is hot. Sometimes you give up a good shot to get a great shot for your teammate and vice versa. If we don’t turn the ball over and we share the basketball, good things are going to happen.”

Penn State shot 57.9% from the field (33 of 57) and 50% from 3-point territory (10 of 20) in Saturday’s 83-69 victory over LaSalle. It was the third time Penn State has scored at least 80 points this season.

Harvard also has four players who are averaging at least 10 points per game: senior guard Chandler Pigge (15.8), sophomore guard Robert Hinton (13.2), sophomore guard Tey Barbour (11.4) and junior forward Thomas Batties III (10.8). Pigge has scored in double figures in each of Harvard’s five games.

Hinton, the Ivy League Freshman of the Year last season, collected 13 points and a game-high seven rebounds during a 56-54 victory over Marist on Sunday. The victory came one night after Harvard beat Army, 75-52.

“It was one of those kinds of games that could have obviously gone either way,” Harvard coach Tommy Amaker said. “Really proud of our guys for this back-to-back, being able to do it on the road in this fashion on a second night says a lot about their toughness and character.”

-Field Level Media

Kansas freshman guard Darryn Peterson will be out for a third consecutive game with a hamstring strain when the No. 24 Jayhawks face No. 5 Duke on Tuesday in New York.

Peterson is a Naismith High School Player of the Year winner last season as well as a McDonald’s All-American. He scored 21 points in a victory during his college debut against Green Bay on Nov. 3 and added 22 in a loss at North Carolina on Nov. 7.

The injury forced Peterson to miss Kansas’ victories over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Princeton.

After Tuesday’s neutral-court game against Duke, the Jayhawks do not play again until Monday when they face Notre Dame in the Players Era event at Las Vegas.

Peterson’s injury is scheduled to be re-evaluated at the end of the week, according to head coach Bill Self.

–Field Level Media

First-year Auburn coach Steven Pearl didn’t need long to break down why his team lost to then-No. 1 Houston 73-72 Sunday in Birmingham, Ala.

“We missed 12 free throws. That’s the difference in the game right there,” he said. “If we go ahead and make our free throws, it’s a different ball game.”

The No. 22 Tigers will try to improve at the foul line Wednesday night when they host Jackson State in another non-conference game.

Auburn (3-1) rallied down the stretch despite the loss of leading scorer Keyshawn Hall. The Central Florida transfer, who finished with 20 points, departed with a foot injury with 4:14 remaining after canning two foul shots. The status of Hall, who’s averaging 23.3 points per game and 11 rebounds, for Wednesday night’s game isn’t known.

If Hall can’t go, the Tigers might rely more on point guard Tahaad Pettiford, which isn’t a bad thing. Pettiford is scoring 12 points per game, tied for second on the team with Mississippi State transfer KeShawn Murphy, to go along with 3.0 assists and 1.5 steals.

After supplying 15 points and a pair of steals on Sunday, Pettiford saluted his team’s performance in the last 2:59, when they held Houston scoreless.

“We got stops when we needed to; just couldn’t convert at the end of the game,” he said. “We think we can compete with anybody in the country. We fought against a great team.”

With six players averaging at least 10.3 points per game, Auburn is scoring 88.8 points per contest.

It’s yet to become a great shooting team, however, as it is hitting only 69% at the foul line and a measly 29.2% on 3-pointers. But it takes care of the ball with just 9.5 turnovers per game, finishing with just eight against the Cougars’ physical defense.

While the Tigers are flashing the potential to compete with anyone they play, Jackson State (0-3) is taking lumps against a spate of top 25 opponents. After blowout defeats at Illinois and Louisville to start the season, it fell 68-51 Saturday at Louisiana Tech.

Jayme Mitchell led the Tigers with 13 points, just under his per-game average of 13.3, but made only 3 of 11 attempts from the field. Daeshun Ruffin is the team’s leading scorer at 14.7 ppg but after the leading pair, no one else is in double figures.

Jackson State brings some lurid stats into this matchup. Its 32.6 field goal accuracy is 365th and last in Division I, while it’s also near the bottom in points per game (58.7), assists (8.3) and rebounds (28.3).

However, there’s still plenty of reason for optimism for the Tigers. They were picked third in the Southwestern Athletic Conference preseason poll after advancing to the league’s championship game in March. And Ruffin, who scored 15.6 points per game last season, is the SWAC’s preseason Player of the Year.

Jackson State’s coach might be the best player on the floor if he were eligible. Mo Williams, a former NBA All-Star and champion during a successful 14-year career, is in his fourth season as the program’s coach. He’s 37-17 in conference play the last three seasons.

–Field Level Media

In No. 11 Alabama’s most recent game, Purdue outrebounded the Crimson Tide by 24 on live balls – going a long way toward explaining why the Boilermakers came away with a seven-point win on Alabama’s home court.

“That’s embarrassing,” said Alabama coach Nate Oats. “In life, in sports, the team that plays harder, people that work harder in whatever field you’re in, should win. And they won. They deserved to win. We’re going to have to fix some stuff.”

If not, Oats and the Crimson Tide are at risk of being embarrassed again in their next game.

Alabama (2-1) continues its arduous non-conference slate with Wednesday’s trip to face No. 8 Illinois (4-0) at the United Center in Chicago.

The Illini opened this week second in the nation in rebound margin at plus-21.7 per game. Much of the credit goes to David Mirkovic, the 6-foot-9, 250-pound freshman from Montenegro who racked up 27 points and 21 rebounds on Friday against Colgate.

Mirkovic became just the eighth Big Ten player in the last eight seasons to produce a 20-20 game – joining the likes of NBA big men Zach Edey, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Keegan Murray and Derik Queen.

Four games into his college career, Mirkovic (19.5 ppg, 12.5 rpg) already owns three double-doubles. But Illinois coach Brad Underwood spent the practices leading up to the Colgate game riding Mirkovic because he grabbed just four boards on Nov. 11 against No. 11 Texas Tech.

“I think he had 18 percent go-rate (to the offensive boards) in the Tech game,” Underwood said. “That is never good. Awful… I think he took that personal.”

Underwood compared Mirkovic’s competitiveness level to former Illinois All-American guard Ayo Dosunmu, a second-round pick who has beaten the odds to get to a fifth season with the Chicago Bulls.

“Cheat you, fight you, do whatever to win,” Underwood said. “He’s like that. And those are pretty good traits.”

Sounds like some traits that Oats wishes his players would show more frequently. Certainly Alabama looked worthy when it went to Madison Square Garden on Nov. 8 and took down St. John’s.

“We’ve got issues on the glass,” Oats said. “We knew it in our exhibition games. We knew it in our intrasquad scrimmages. We knew it up at St. John’s. We did a pretty good job. We outrebounded them by one.

“Until we figure out how to make tougher plays, rebound the basketball at a much higher level, we’re going to have a hard time beating the best teams in the country.”

For all the discussion about rebounding, Illinois-Alabama could come down to guard play. The Crimson Tide are loaded with Aden Holloway (21.0 ppg), LaBaron Philon (19.3 ppg, 6.0 apg), Latrell Wrightsell Jr. (11.5 ppg) and Houston Mallette (10.7 ppg).

“I know their backcourt is really, really good,” Underwood said. “Maybe one of the best in the country.”

But Illinois’ crew isn’t too shabby, even though starting point guard Mihailo Petrovic (hamstring) has yet to play. Senior Kylan Boswell averages 18.5 points and 3.8 assists per game while freshman Keaton Wagler, who did not rank among the nation’s top 100 prospects, has started in Petrovic’s stead and averaged 17.5 points while getting to the line 34 times in four games.

“When you stick your nose in there, a lot of good things happen,” Underwood said of Wagler. “He’s fearless and he’s got great, great patience in the paint.”

-Field Level Media