Making the grade

Nurse won her 100th career game at UConn on Saturday, she recently scored the 1,000th point of her career and been a member of a pair of national championship teams. However, not all of her best work is done on the court.

The junior guard earned CoSIDA Academic All-District honors for the second season in a row thanks to a 3.44 grade-point average. She is now a candidate for Academic All-American honors and if she is selected, she would join UConn legends Breanna Stewart, Moore, Jen Rizzotti and Rebecca Lobo among Huskies to earn that prestigious honor.

“It shows that you can succeed in different ways on the court and then go in the classroom after a long day, a long road trip and knock out a great quiz grade, that is the best feeling,” Nurse said.

Nurse and her teammates do have the advantage of chartering to and from games and having academic advisors to help out. Still, UConn had games in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Indiana during the fall semester and the performance of the team members in the classroom was nearly as impressive as what they accomplished on the basketball court.

“I think we did a really good job this semester especially staying focused in the classroom and understanding that our schedule was a lot of road travel so when study time came around when we were on the road, making sure that we got work done and everybody pulled it out,” Nurse said. NO. 3 KANSAS 80, TEXAS TECH 79 » At Lubbock, Texas, Josh Jackson had 31 points and 11 rebounds and made a free throw with 2.8 seconds left for Kansas.

After Kansas inbounded the ball with 5.4 seconds left, Jackson was fouled and missed the first free throw before making the game-winner.

Landen Lucas scored 13 points and Frank Mason III had 12 for Kansas (223, 10-2 Big 12).

Keenan Evans finished with 25 points and Niem Stevenson had a careerhigh 22 points and 10 rebounds for Texas Tech (169, 4-8). Zach Smith finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds. NO. 4 LOUISVILLE 71, MIAMI 66» At Louisville, Kentucky, Quentin Snider returned from an injury to score 13 points, including a big 3-pointer with 41 seconds remaining, and Deng Adel and Donovan Mitchell added 18 points each for Louisville.

The Cardinals (20-5, 8-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) had to fight back from a 14-point first-half deficit and finally drew even on Mitchell’s 3 with 6:12 left, part of a 13-0 run for a 6153 lead. Louisville’s surge included Adel’s four-point play.

Miami rallied to tie it at 61 with 1:56 left before Snider made two free throws and then the long 3 as he returned from a sixgame absence with a hip NO. 15 KENTUCKY 67, ALABAMA 58 » At Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Isaiah Briscoe had 11 points, 11 rebounds and four assists to help Kentucky weather one of its lowest scoring outputs.

The Wildcats (20-5, 10-2 Southeastern Conference), fresh from a shootout win over LSU, found a way to win at a much different tempo after dropping three of their last five games. NO. 17 FLORIDA 71, TEXAS A&M 62 » At Gainesville, Florida, Justin Leon scored 18 points, and Canyon Barry added 12 for Florida. NO. 18 DUKE 64, CLEMSON 62 » At Durham, North Carolina, Luke Kennard scored 25 points for Duke. NO. 21 MARYLAND 86, OHIO ST. 77 » At College Park, Maryland, Anthony Cowan scored 19 points and fellow freshman Kevin Huerter added 18 as Maryland ended its first losing streak of the season. PROVIDENCE 71, NO. 22 BUTLER 65 » At Providence, Rhode Island, Alpha Diallo scored 15 points and Kyron Cartwright had 14 for Providence. NO. 23 CREIGHTON 93, DEPAUL 58 » At Rosemont, Illinois, Toby Hegner set a season high with 14 points and matched one with four 3-pointers and Marcus Foster scored 13 points for Creighton.