Welcome to “The Daily Scoop”, an article to bring you up to date with the latest news from college basketball and a preview of the day ahead.

Daily Headlines

With the bubble weakening, it’s hard to say Utah is out of the picture after back-to-back wins over the Kansas schools

The agenda over the past week or so in college basketball media has been how weak the bubble is this year, but this may open up things for a team like Kansas State or Utah who is getting hot as of late, or even mid majors like UCSD, UC Irvine, or Drake to claim an at-large bid. After Kansas State won six in a row, it traveled to the Beehive State, where it fell to BYU and Utah, leaving 0-2.

Now, Utah is the Big 12 bubble team with a bit of momentum, taking down Kansas on Saturday and Kansas State late on Monday. Just a week ago, the Utes were 13-11 with nothing that screamed “bubble team”, and while they’re still a ways back from actually being in the tournament picture, if they can finish the regular season 4-1 or even 5-0, it’ll be worth having a discussion about Craig Smith’s squad ahead of the Big 12 Tournament.

Led by senior guard Gabe Madsen (15.5 ppg, 3.0 3PM per game), the Utes have an interesting team makeup, and headlined by Madsen, shoot plenty of threes and share the ball extremely well, ranking first nationally in assist rate per KenPom. In Saturday night’s showdown with Kansas on ESPN, Madsen led the way with 24 points, hitting five three-pointers, including the dagger late, which gave Utah the win and Madsen the school’s all-time three-point makes record.

While Madsen only shoots 32.4% from three, a far cry from the 38%+ marks in each of the past three seasons, watching Utah play you can see it doesn’t throw Craig Smith off, and Madsen is still treated just as dangerously by opposing teams. Most of the misses you’ll see from Madsen are wild attempts rather than bad misses. Kansas couldn’t find him early, and didn’t find him late when he sealed the record-setting three-pointer, and that was all it took to hand the Jayhawks a 74-67 loss in the Hunstman Center.

Kansas State held Madsen to 13 points on Monday, but the Utes still found a way to get it done, in large part due to huge games from Ezra Ausar (11.4 ppg, 4.8 rpg) and Lawson Lovering (8.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg). Kansas State is a team with plenty of size, but it was the Utes’ bigs that came up big at home. Ausar led the way with 21 points, his second-highest tally as a Ute, only behind a 26-point performance in an overtime victory over BYU in January. Lovering went for 15 points and ten rebounds, securing his first double-double since January of 2023. The Utes survived 74-69 at home against Kansas State, as Mike Sharavjamts came up with a big dunk with just 22 seconds left to salt the game away.

With the danger of Madsen’s shooting ability and Utah’s ability to get to the free throw line on a consistent basis, the Utes’ offensive capabilities can catch you on a bad night. Over the last two games, the team has stepped up plenty defensively, something that needs to continue if the Utes want to find themselves firmly in the bubble picture. With five games remaining, including two on the road against Arizona and BYU, we’ll find out quickly if the hype is warranted for this Utah team that has found success over the last week.

Other Things to Note:

• #3 Duke handles Virginia 80-62 on the road on ESPN Big Monday
• #19 Arizona wins on the road, fights past Baylor 74-67 at Foster Pavilion
• #21 Mississippi State looks for back-to-back wins for the first time in over a month when it hosts #7 Texas A&M (7:00 ET, SECN)
• #13 Purdue meets #14 Michigan State in the Breslin Center for pivotal matchup near the top of the Big Ten (7:00 ET, Peacock)
• #11 Wisconsin looks for fifth straight win, hosting struggling Illinois (8:30 ET, FS1)