HOUSTON (AP) — Dedan Thomas Jr. scored 16 points, Corey Hadnot II added 14 and No. 10 Houston opened its season with a 94-55 win over La Salle on Monday night.
Delrecco Gillespie had 13 points — 11 in the first half — and Chase McCarty scored all 10 of his points in the opening 20 minutes as the Cougars built a 43-23 halftime lead. Arafan Diane also scored 10 for Houston.
The Cougars shot 54% and outrebounded the Explorers 47-32. Houston also turned 19 turnovers into 25 points and had a 44-10 scoring advantage in the paint.
Kam Burton scored 15 points and Devin Booker added 12 for the Explorers. La Salle shot 25% and went 8 of 39 on 3-pointers.
The teams combined for 46 fouls, three technicals and one flagrant foul. Houston finished 27 of 37 from the free-throw line, while La Salle was 17 of 23.
Houston took a 20-3 lead on a layup by Braden East with 11 minutes left in the first half. La Salle responded with an 8-0 run to cut the lead to nine on a 3-pointer by Burton.
The Cougars outscored La Salle 23-12 to end the half, with McCarty scoring his 10 points over the final nine minutes.
La Salle: Hosts Long Island on Saturday.
Houston: Faces California in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, on Sunday night.
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Houston forward Chase McCarty (24) shoots over La Salle forward Noah Collier (7) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Kevin M. Cox)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The death toll from a Russian attack in southern Ukraine on a site where people had gathered to receive humanitarian aid rose to 31 on Tuesday, with dozens of people still missing, as a wave of overnight strikes targeted power plants across the country, damaged hospitals and wounded scores of people.
Teams of rescuers and volunteers continued to search the cratered blast site of a destroyed aid facility and shelter in Komyushuvakha, a village in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, hoping to find more than 45 missing residents alive under the rubble. Instead, more bodies were pulled out and carried away in white plastic sheeting.
“The scale of the tragedy is terrifying,” Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the region’s military administration, wrote in an online post. “This is one of the worst tragedies in terms of the number of civilian victims in our region since the start of the full-scale war.”
Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions, triggering emergency power cuts, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an online post that noted the barrage coincided with U.S. elections.
“The Russians think America won’t notice this signal of theirs,” he said. “But we need to notice and stop such terror. We need to help Ukraine defend its skies; otherwise, Russia will never stop its missile strikes.”
Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia where Russian bunker-busting bombs, filled with nearly 1.5 tons of explosives, were used in Monday’s attack.
The dead included four police officers and two rescue workers, Semikin said Tuesday. At least five people were hurt.
In the northeast region of Kharkiv, a combined Russian missile and drone attack wounded at least 62 people, local authorities said.
A strike damaged a medical facility in the Nemyshlianskyi district, shattered windows in four apartment buildings and damaged cars. More than 200 patients were transferred to other medical facilities, head of the regional military administration Oleh Syniehubov said.
In the Dnipro area, rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble Tuesday morning, after a Russian attack killed one person and wounded 17, local authorities said.
The attack damaged an outpatient clinic and a hospital. Patients were transferred to other hospitals, Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said.
Moscow kept up its nightly attacks on power plants and energy infrastructure ahead of winter, causing extensive damage and electricity outages as it carried out 20 strikes in 10 regions overnight, Ukraine’s energy ministry said.
Ukrainian power utility DTEK said three of its power plants halted operations after significant damage from intense attacks. No injuries were reported.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday that it had shot down 856 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 493 drones were fired toward the Russian capital.
A Ukrainian drone attack wounded two employees at an oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, regional Gov. Mikhail Yevrayev said Tuesday. He added that there was damage to the refinery’s infrastructure.
Rolling blackouts have been instituted in the south, west and east of Russian-occupied Crimea following attacks on energy infrastructure, Moscow-installed officials said Tuesday.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers evacuate a wounded civilian from a residential building after Russian air attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a residential building is seen following a Russian air attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers evacuate a wounded civilian from a residential building after Russian air attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
People take shelter from Russian drone and missile attacks in a metro station, now used as a bomb shelter, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
A woman and her cat take shelter from a Russian drone and missile attack, in a metro station, now used as a bomb shelter, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
