Darrion Williams scored 20 points, including five straight in a key stretch of the second half, and Texas Tech held on to defeat Syracuse 79-74 in the third-place game of the Legends Classic in New York on Friday night.

JT Toppin finished with 15 points, six rebounds and three blocks and Chance McMillian nailed three 3-pointers while finishing with 13 points for the Red Raiders (5-1). Elijah Hawkins had 11 points and six assists, and Williams added six rebounds.

J.J. Starling scored 27 points on 9-of-15 shooting and Chris Bell netted 22 points, going 11-for-11 from the free-throw line for the Orange (3-2). Bell missed a late 3-point attempt as Syracuse tried to rally.

Texas Tech, which committed two turnovers in the first two minutes of the game but only one after that, led most of the way, although the teams were within five points of each other for much of the first 28 minutes.

With the Red Raiders ahead by four with 12 minutes to go in the game, Toppin scored on an alley-oop pass from Williams. After an offensive foul by Syracuse, Williams hit a 3-pointer to make it a nine-point lead. The Orange then missed a 3-point try, and Williams drove for a layup to make it 55-44 with 10:44 to play.

Syracuse tried to rally, getting as close as five points on multiple occasions, including with 3:16 to play on Eddie Lampkin Jr.’s jumper to make it 68-63.

However, Bell missed a wide-open 3-point attempt that would have pulled the Orange within two with 1:41 left, and Williams responded with a turnaround jumper on the other end to push the lead to 71-64. Syracuse didn’t threaten again.

In the first half, Starling, who played all 40 minutes of Syracuse’s Thursday loss to Texas, scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting, including back-to-back layups late in the half as the Orange whittled away a seven-point deficit. His 3-pointer with 49 seconds left tied the game 31-31, which was the halftime score.

Williams, who entered averaging 15.2 per game, led the Red Raiders with seven points at the break.

Texas Tech shot 42.9 percent overall and 8 of 24 (33.3 percent) on 3-point tries. Syracuse, which committed 12 turnovers, shot 41.5 percent from the floor but just 6 of 21 (28.6 percent) from long range.

–Field Level Media

RJ Luis Jr. scored nine of his 18 points during a decisive first-half run for No. 22 St. John’s, which cruised to an 80-55 win over Virginia in the consolation game of the Baha Mar Championship in the Bahamas on Friday.

Deivon Smith (10 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists) just missed a triple-double for St. John’s (5-1), which fell to No. 13 Baylor 99-98 on Jeremy Roach’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer in double overtime Thursday night. Kadary Richmond had 12 points while Zuby Ejiofor (eight points, nine rebounds) nearly had a double-double.

Elijah Sanders scored 12 points while Andrew Rohde had 11 points off the bench for Virginia (3-2), which opened play in the Bahamas with a 64-42 loss to No. 11 Tennessee on Thursday night. Isaac McKneely added 10 points.

Virginia took its lone lead Friday at 7-6 on a 3-pointer by Dai Dai Ames with 15:58 left in the first half. Richmond’s dunk 37 seconds later gave St. John’s the lead for good and began a 10-0 run in which the Cavaliers were 0-for-2 from the field and 0-for-3 from the line while committing three turnovers.

A 3-pointer by Aaron Scott put St. John’s ahead by double digits for the first time at 19-8 before Virginia scored the next eight points and pulled within three points on Blake Buchanan’s jumper with 9:24 left.

Luis hit a 3-pointer to begin a 16-0 run for St. John’s. Virginia was 0-for-4 with six turnovers during the Red Storm’s surge, which lasted more than seven minutes.

McKneely scored seven points — including a four-point play in the final second — as the Cavaliers ended the half on a 10-4 run to cut the deficit to 39-26. Saunders opened the second half with a layup, but St. John’s scored the next six points.

The Red Storm went ahead by 20 points for good at 52-32 on a dunk by Luis with 14:27 left and opened their biggest lead at 72-43 when Ejiofor drained a jumper with 6:01 remaining.

–Field Level Media

Pierre Brooks II logged a game-high 23 points and 12 rebounds for Butler, which started the second half with a decisive run to beat Merrimack 78-39 on Friday night in Indianapolis.

Andre Screen had 12 points and nine rebounds while Jahmyl Telfort and Patrick McCaffery put up 11 points apiece for the Bulldogs (4-1). Evan Haywood added 10 points.

Adam Clark led the Warriors (1-4) with eight points. Matt Becht and David Murray each chipped in six points for Merrimack.

The Bulldogs turned a close game into a rout with a 28-2 run to start the second half. Butler led 37-31 at halftime but held Merrimack to 1-for-22 shooting from the field and 0-of-9 from three-point range for the first 14 minutes of the second half.

Merrimack scored just eight points in the second half. The Warriors shot 29.8 percent from the floor for the game and 14.3 percent (3-for-21) from long distance.

While the Warriors mixed 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones to slow down the Bulldogs’ offensive flow in the first half, it was a different game after halftime. Butler worked the ball around the perimeter to find holes in the Merrimack zone. Butler threw over the top to Screen, who spun baseline for a layup and a 45-31 lead.

On the next defensive possession, Screen blocked a shot, started the fastbreak with an outlet pass, and pulled down an offensive rebound, which he followed with a powerful, two-hand slam as the Bulldogs started to pull away.

McCaffery drilled a corner 3-pointer to give the Bulldogs a 50-33 edge with 11:14 left in the game. Brooks’ jumper with just over 10 minutes left in the game gave Butler its first 20-point lead of the game at 54-33.

A long 3-pointer from Brooks with 7:36 left opened the Butler lead to 63-33.

Merrimack broke the Butler onslaught with a fastbreak layup by Clark with 5:44 left in the game, ending the Warriors’ five-plus-minute scoring drought.

–Field Level Media

Alijah Martin poured in a game-high 32 points Friday night and made eight 3-pointers, the most by a Florida player since January 2019, as the 21st-ranked Gators drilled visiting Southern Illinois 93-68 in Gainesville, Fla.

Thomas Haugh came off the bench to add 19 points for Florida (6-0), which entered the game hitting 28.9 percent of its 3-pointers and finished the night with a season-high 16 on 39 attempts (41 percent). The Gators started 3-of-14 from 3-point range, then hit 13 of their final 25 as they blew the game open.

Ali Dibba scored 17 points to pace the Salukis (2-3), while Jarrett Hensley added 14 and Kennard Davis Jr. contributed 11. Leading scorer Elijah Elliott, who came in averaging 16.5 points and shooting 55.3 percent from the field, made just 1 of 6 and managed only four points before leaving the game with 16:33 left after suffering an apparent leg injury.

The Gators never trailed, but the game was close for the first 12 minutes. Hensley’s tip-in with 8:18 left in the half drew Southern Illinois within 19-15. Florida then ambushed the visitors with a 22-2 burst over a 5:15 stretch that included seven straight points from Martin.

Martin’s 3-pointer with 1:05 remaining capped his 18-point half and gave the Gators a 46-19 cushion. They settled for a 46-25 advantage at the break.
After a brief lull to start the second half, Florida gradually expanded its cushion to 30 points when Urban Klavzar made a layup with 9:53 left for a 74-44 lead.

The Gators finished the night 46.7 percent from the field and drew assists on 25 of their 35 made baskets. Their defense held the Salukis to 34.7 percent shooting from the field and made them resort to one-on-one play for many of their buckets. SIU managed just seven assists for the game.

Florida also enjoyed sizable advantages in fastbreak points (20-6) and bench scoring (35-15), although the Salukis earned a 49-46 edge in rebounding.

–Field Level Media

Freshman John Mobley Jr. set a career high with 23 points as Ohio State used a first-half burst to rout visiting Campbell 104-60 in on Friday in Columbus.

Mobley surpassed his previous best of 16 on a 3-pointer that gave Ohio State a 49-27 lead with 1:20 left in the first half. Having made 11 of 19 treys in the previous four games, Mobley made all five attempts among his 19 points to help the Buckeyes (4-1) pull away by the break.

He missed all three 3-point tries in the second half.

Devin Royal scored 17 points, Micah Parrish contributed 16 and Meechie Johnson had 12 for the Buckeyes, who scored 100 points in a game for the first time since a 106-74 win over Penn State on Dec. 7, 2019.

Bragi Gudmundsson scored 12 points and Cam Gregory, Terren Frank and Jasin Sinani each had 10 points for Campbell (3-3).

The Camels trailed 20-17 midway through the first half and had visions of hanging tough with the Buckeyes like they did in the second game of the season against Virginia. In that Nov. 6 contest, Campbell was within five points with less than two minutes to play before losing 65-56.

But Friday didn’t pan out the same way.

The hot-shooting Buckeyes blitzed the Camels with a 33-10 run for a 53-27 halftime lead, similar to their 28-3 second-half spurt during an 80-30 win against Evansville on Tuesday.

Ohio State made 18 of 29 field goals (62.1 percent) in the first half, including 11 of 13 (84.6 percent) from beyond the arc against a stingy Campbell defense that had allowed just 57.0 points per game entering Friday.

The Buckeyes were without sophomore center Aaron Bradshaw, who per a team statement is “not currently participating in team activities.”

The statement added: “The university is following its established process. Due to federal privacy laws, we cannot share further information at this time.”

The 7-foot-1 center transferred after one season at Kentucky and started four games this season, averaging 7.8 points and 4.8 rebounds over nearly 24 minutes.

–Field Level Media

Gabe Madsen scored 19 points to help Utah bounce back from its only loss of the season in an 84-53 home victory over visiting Utah Tech on Friday afternoon in Salt Lake City.

Keanu Dawes contributed 14 points and nine rebounds, Mason Madsen added 12 points and Mike Sharavjamts tallied 10 points, five assists and four rebounds in the win. Miro Little totaled 11 rebounds, eight assists and four points for Utah (4-1).

Hakim Byrd and Tennessee Rainwater each scored eight points to lead Utah Tech (1-4).

The Trailblazers held a brief lead in the first half, but ended up shooting just 30.3 percent from the field and missed eight of 14 free throws while playing the second game of an eight-game road trip.

Utah shot 48.5 percent overall with 24 assists on 32 made baskets. The Utes outrebounded their instate foe 50-36 and won the points-in-the-paint battle 44-24.

Utah established itself from the tip, jumping out to an 8-0 lead after four consecutive inside buckets by Gabe Madsen (two layups), Jake Wahlin and Sharavjamts.

The Trailblazers fired back to take an 11-10 lead a moment later after 3-pointers from Noa Gonsalves and Rainwater, three points from Samuel Ariyibi and a layup by Justin Bieker.

Utah responded with a 9-0 run, capped by a Gabe Madsen fastbreak layup.

Dawes helped the Utes take a 42-26 halftime lead by scoring nine straight points for his team during an 18-7 surge.

Gabe Madsen then hit a second-chance layup and a 3-pointer as Utah opened the second half with six straight points en route to the blowout.

Gabe Madsen hit three 3-pointers to rebound from a 1-for-10 outing beyond the arc in the Utes’ loss at Mississippi State on Sunday. Overall, the Utes’ season leading scorer made 8 of 17 field goals.

Mason Madsen and Hunter Erickson (eight points) each hit two 3s.

–Field Level Media