College basketball: No. 5 Kentucky Wildcats hold off Vermont

Kentucky coach John Calipari didn’t mind a closer-than-expected 73-69 win over Vermont on Sunday in Lexington, Ky.

“You cannot play Popcorn State and learn anything,” Calipari said. “You’ve got to play good teams. I didn’t realize how good [Vermont] was until I watched the tape. Then I was like, ‘who scheduled this game? This is ridiculous.’ They just do an unbelievable job.”

The Wildcats, playing their second game in three days to open the season, missed seven of their last eight field goals and held off a late surge by the Catamounts. Trailing 72-69, Vermont missed two three-pointers in the final 30 seconds. P.J. Washington made one of two free throws with less than a second left for the final margin.

Vermont, which finished 29-6 last season and hadn’t lost a regular-season game since an 81-69 setback to Butler last December, was led by Trae Bell-Haynes with 16 points. Anthony Lamb scored 15, Drew Urquhart had 13 and Ernie Duncan added 10.

at No. 3 Arizona 103, Maryland-Baltimore County 78: Allonzo Trier scored 30 points and the Wildcats overpowered the Retrievers.

DeAndre Ayton added 19 points and 13 rebounds for Arizona (2-0), which scored over 100 points for the second time in two games this season.

Arizona pulled away with Trier’s three-pointer, one of five for the junior guard, for an 86-68 lead, then freshman Alex Barcello drilled back-to-back threes to put the game away.

The Wildcats made 61% of their shots for the game and 15 of 28 three-pointerss.

Guard Jairus Lyles scored 23 of his 31 points in the first half for the Retrievers (0-2).

at No. 12 Miami 89, Navy 55: D.J. Vasiljevic scored 16 points to lead the Hurricanesover the Midshipmen.

Vasiljevic shook off a sub-par shooting performance in Friday’s opener against Gardner Webb. The sophomore guard missed 10 of his 12 attempts in the opener. He made half of his 10 shots on Sunday.

at No. 16 Louisville 72, George Mason 61: Deng Adel had 20 points, and freshmen Darius Perry and Jordan Nwora combined to score 22 in the second half to rally the Cardinals past the Patriots to win David Padgett’s debut as the Cardinals’ interim coach.

The Cardinals trailed for the much of the game before their newcomers stepped to make all six combined shots, with many in clutch moments. Louisville shot 70% after halftime to win its first regular-season contest since longtime coach Rick Pitino was fired last month in the wake of a national federal investigation of corruption in college basketball.

Connecticut women top Stanford, 78-53

Connecticut used a balanced offense and a dominant defensive effort to start the season with an easy rout of Stanford at Columbus, Ohio.

Crystal Dangerfield scored 24 points and Katie Lou Samuelson added 21 to help the top-ranked Huskies beat the No. 10 Cardinal 78-53 in Nationwide Arena, the host site for the 2018 NCAA women’s Final Four.

SOUTHLAND MEN

UC Irvine 83, at Denver 69: Evan Leonard had 19 points to lead five Anteaters players in double figures for a win over the Pioneers. Eyassu Worku scored 12 points for Irvine and Tommy Rutherford scored 10 and had 11 rebounds.

SOUTHLAND WOMEN

at No. 8 UCLA 76, Presbyterian 40: Monique Billings scored 12 points, Kennedy Burke added 11, and the Bruins routed the Blue Hose for their second straight blowout victory. The Bruins were coming off a 60-point win against San Jose State.

MONDAY SCHEDULE

MEN

Cal State Northridge at Fresno State 7 p.m.

WOMEN

USC at UC Riverside 7 p.m.