The San Antonio Spurs have been the hottest team in the league since Jan. 1.

They will look to continue their run of success on Thursday when they host the Denver Nuggets.

The Spurs boast MVP candidate Victor Wembanyama and a supporting cast that seems to showcase a different player every game, They have won five straight games and 16 of their past 17 games.

San Antonio is 24-8 since the calendar turned to 2026 and undefeated during an 11-game stretch in February.

The Spurs kept rolling on Tuesday, as Wembanyama scored 39 points while hitting a career-high-tying eight 3-pointers in a 125-116 win over the Boston Celtics.

“I’m adapting to what the defense gives me,” Wembanyama said. “I think that’s something that defines me. It’s something I don’t want to lose, ever. Someday, the goal is to be kind of unguardable.”

The Spurs led by seven entering the fourth quarter but were only up 106-105 before Wembanyama delivered a powerful dunk followed by a 3-pointer on back-to-back possessions.

“He did a good job with his mechanics of being disciplined, and he’s shown he can obviously get out and make shots, and it really can put defenses in a tough place in terms of how they want to play,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “Because if you take the gravity away from him, obviously he can open up the rest of the floor.”

De’Aaron Fox added 25 points and nine assists for the Spurs in Tuesday’s win.

Wembanyama was listed as questionable for Thursday’s game because of a gimpy ankle.

The Nuggets will play the second game of a back-to-back set on the heels of a 129-93 win over visiting Houston on Wednesday.

Jamal Murray led Denver with 30 points in the victory while Christian Braun had 19, Cameron Johnson added 17 and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic collected 16 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds.

Denver shot 55.2% from the floor and forced 15 turnovers while outscoring the Rockets by 30 points after halftime.

Wednesday’s victory snapped a two-game losing streak for the Nuggets, who had their preferred starting lineup intact for just the 11th time this season. Denver is now 9-2 with that group starting a game.

“When the group was whole, we were 8-2 with a top-five defense and top-five offense.” Denver coach David Adelman said before Wednesday’s game. “We lost two fourth-quarter leads. We could’ve easily been 10-0 to start the season.

“But since then, it has been different, just different lineups every week, every day. If we can get enough games under our belt and lucky enough to get in (the playoffs), we’ll be an issue. We’ll be a problem.”

Denver has 16 games left in the regular season to climb up the Western Conference standings and get back into sync.

“There’s going to be some growing pains,” Adelman said. “Patience is the key. We had (a full rotation) for 10 games to start the season which went really well. Just get them back into the fold, get the flow back in. When you go into the playoffs or play-in (tournament), you want to be going up. You want to feel you’ve hit your mark. So we do need time.”

–Field Level Media

Oklahoma rolled past South Carolina in the first round of the SEC tournament on Wednesday in Nashville to set up a third season meeting with Texas A&M, a match that means much more to the Sooners than denying the Aggies a season three-peat.

Playing for their NCAA Tournament lives, the 11th-seeded Sooners overcame a 13-point first-half deficit to beat the Gamecocks 86-74.

Nijel Pack scored 24 points and Derrion Reid had 20 for the Sooners (18-14), who are projected to be one of the final teams left out of the 68-team NCAA field before conference tournaments began.

“We know this is a survive-and-advance type of time,” Pack said on the SEC Network. “It’s one game at a time. That’s all we’re focused on.”

Sixth-seeded Texas A&M (21-10), which had a first-round tournament bye, beat the Sooners 83-76 and 75-71 in the regular season.

The latter was the Sooners’ 11th loss in 13 games and seemed to doom their NCAA chances, but they have won five straight since. That streak includes wins over Auburn, Missouri and Texas, all considered to be in the tournament field after Wednesday games.

“We had a different route that we had to take,” Pack said. “Sometimes it sucked to go through hard times, but I’m glad it shaped us into the team we are today.”

The Aggies have won two in a row and four of six after a season-worst four-game losing streak in early February that included setbacks to now-No. 15 Alabama, then-No. 17 Florida and then-No. 19 Vanderbilt.

“The way we ended the season, we aren’t going up there with the weight of the world on our shoulders,” Aggies coach Bucky McMillan said. “Our players should be able to go up there and play loose.”

The Aggies come in waves with their full-game, full court press. Forward Rashaun Agee leads five double-figure scorers with 14.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. Nine players average at least 15 minutes per game.

Agee had a season-high 26 points and his 12th double-double in a 94-91 triple-overtime victory over LSU in the regular-season finale on Saturday. He has averaged 19.0 points per game in the last six.

The Aggies averaged 29.8 three-point attempts and 10.9 makes entering the SEC tournament, both 14th in Division I.

–Field Level Media

NEW YORK — Villanova’s return to prominence after three seasons of mediocrity following coach Jay Wright’s retirement will be official when its name gets selected for the NCAA Tournament.

Until the selection show on Sunday, Villanova (24-7) will attempt to improve its seeding for the NCAAs on Thursday night when the third-seeded Wildcats face 11th-seeded Georgetown (15-17) in a quarterfinal game of the Big East tournament.

After Wright retired following a Final Four appearance in 2022, assistant Kyle Neptune was promoted to the top job, and the Wildcats went a pedestrian 54-47. Following a 21-15 finish that included a 17-point loss to UConn in the quarterfinal in last year’s conference tournament, Villanova hired Kevin Willard from Maryland.

In his return to the Big East, former Seton Hall coach Willard and Villanova enter the Big East tournament with a NET rating of 33 through Wednesday. The Wildcats won 12 of their first 14 games and won six straight from Jan. 30 to Feb. 17 before winning three of their final four games and ending the regular season with double-digit wins over DePaul and Xavier.

Villanova is among the more physical teams in the league, with Duke Brennan totaling 20 points and 13 rebounds in the regular-season finale. Brennan had 14 double-doubles after transferring from Grand Canyon and grabbed a combined 23 rebounds in wins over Georgetown on Jan. 21 and Feb. 7.

“I mean, it’s a fun time of the year,” said Brennan, who made the NCAA Tournament in his previous four seasons with Arizona State and Grand Canyon. “March Madness is the best tournament ever put on. It feels good to be back, so I’m really proud of myself. But it’ll be great for those guys, especially our freshmen, younger-class guys that haven’t made it.”

Among those freshmen is guard Acaden Lewis, who averages 12.5 points a game this season and totaled 41 points on 18-of-28 shooting from the field against the Hoyas.

The Hoyas shot 34% in a 15-point loss at Villanova on Jan. 21 and 40% in an 80-73 home loss to the Wildcats on Feb. 7. The second meeting is among 15 games decided by seven points or less for the Hoyas, who improved to 4-11 in those games by earning a 63-56 victory Wednesday over sixth-seeded DePaul in the opening round of the Big East tournament.

“We didn’t have our best showing at Villanova, and we are aware of that,” Georgetown guard Jeremiah Williams said. “They played a great game when they played us, and then they got the sweep. So we’re excited to get another opportunity out of them, and we’re confident in ourselves and our approach.”

Williams scored 17 points against DePaul, but reserve forward Vincent Iwuchukwu willed the Hoyas to the win by recording 17 points and 14 rebounds. He scored 14 in the second half, including nine in the final three-plus minutes after Georgetown let a 10-point lead slip to two.

–Larry Fleisher, Field Level Media