Alabama, Duke, and LSU all with notable College Basketball exhibition victories

Thursday night in college basketball preseason only featured three games but each of them had its own level of intrigue. For various reasons, Duke, Alabama, and LSU are key programs to watch for the 2026-27 campaign and their first exhibition games were good reasons why. 

Here’s a look at the recap of their respective preseason games, along with some key takeaways.

Duke 102, Belmont 62

The star of the game was Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, a 17-year-old five-star freshman big man who scored a game-high 19 points and seven rebounds, dominating the Belmont frontline. Dame Sarr (19) and John Blackwell (17) were the other key Blue Devils in the blowout. Top-5 freshman prospect Cameron Williams was limited to just 13 minutes in the game, with Coach Jon Scheyer saying he’s recovering from a flu that’s caused him to lose around 15 pounds in the last month.

Not much went right for Belmont, who is starting a new era with Evan Bradds as the first-year head coach. One bright spot was Matthew Zobrist, the lone double-digit scorer for the Bruins with 11 points. He averaged just 1.5 ppg as a freshman at Bradley but looks poised to have a larger role as a sophomore.

LSU 63, McNeese State 60

Despite having just seven players available and essentially a five-man rotation, LSU was able to pull out a road exhibition win. Michigan State transfer Divine Ugochukwu led the way with 18 points, while big man Michael Ruzic, who was just cleared to play by the NCAA the day of the game, had 11 points and 16 rebounds. Notable players who weren’t available for the Tigers included RJ Luis, Skyy Clark, Brice Dessert and Saliou Niang, all dealing with different eligibility issues.

McNeese managed to stay in the game despite shooting just 35% from the field, Returning All-Southland star guard Larry Johnson led the way with 22 points but was the lone double-digit scorer for the Cowboys. So we’ll have to wait to see which of the supporting cast is most likely to become the second option for the program. Still, McNeese looks every bit of a favorite in the Southland.

Alabama 111, Furman 93

Even with star guard Aden Holloway serving a five-game suspension, Alabama’s offense still looked in regular season form. Six players were in double figures, led by 19 points from Amari Allen. The freshmen shined as well, including 18 points from guard Tarris Bouie, as well as 17 from Qayden Samuels. Cole Cloer, a former top-100 wing from NC State, had 14 points, including making his first four three-point attempts on the night.

Furman lost both its stars from last season to the SEC but scoring 93 points with this new cast of players is still solid. Marcus Kell, who averaged 13.6 ppg at Western Carolina, led all scorers with 22 points for the Paladins. Abijah Franklin, who only put up 4.4 ppg as a freshman for Furman, had 21. He could be primed to take over for Alex Wilkins as Furman’s next lead guard.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow