MBB wins vs SUU last night

[Tony (admin)]

Watched the game. We were in control for large portions of the game, but let down a few times to allow SUU to threaten, especially at the end. We will need to play better Saturday. Note though that we didn’t have Branden Carlson playing, so that’s big factor. GO UTES

[belli1976]

I hope Branden is back for BYU on Saturday.

[Rick]

If you take away all of their banked 3’s we win by double figures! I have never seen a team chuck up such horrible shots only to see them bank in. Several of them were at or near the top of the arc! I thought our D was not good at times and it should give coach a lot to hammer them on this week in prep for the Zoobs.

[//r00t4Utes]

Yeah, several lucky banked 3s and desperation shots, with most going in, was crazy. I thought the turnovers were an issue that kept SUU in the game and didn’t allow the utes to get that separation past the 15 to 16 pt lead.

Along with the weirdly officiated game, it kept runs from happening or stopping them, it was not a well officiated game to say the least.

[Rick]

It was like watching two different games from the first half to the second in terms of how the refs called the game. However, if we do not improve our perimeter defense by Saturday, the Zoobs are going to torch us.

[Charlie]

This game was an object lesson in how lucky we are Carlson came back for a year. Had Smith became eligible we would spend the rest of the year improving our post season seed.

[Staples]

It was certainly an interesting game. Scored 88 points yet felt like we left a lot out there, we missed a TON of shots at the rim, basically everyone not named Keba Keita. Defensively we didn’t play well, SUU wasn’t supposed to be a good shooting team and they lit us up. Yes there was some luck (4 banked-in threes) but they got a lot of good looks too. The switch to a zone worked for a stretch, I almost wonder if we shouldn’t make that more of a focus defensively because we haven’t been great this year on that end. Doesn’t help that two of our most athletic options haven’t seen a minute this year in Deivon Smith and Wil Exacte. If Carlson is out on Saturday, I don’t like our chances. If he’s back, we have a fighting chance, but we have to shore things up on defense.

[utefansince79]

Their very first basket and very last basket (where the buzzer sounded while the shot was in mid-air) were banked threes. Another couple of times we were all over them defensively only to have them hit a shot well beyond NBA 3 point range as the shot clock sounded. Just that sort of a night.

Utah showed at times they should be able to dominate but each time we had a big lead, seemed unable to maintain focus and we kept on letting a very determined opponent stick around until the end. Hats off to the T-birds who may have beaten many teams last night.

Need to hit our own treys too, a few usually reliable shooters were off last night.

Meanwhile the guys in stripes kept a rather tight fist on the contest and even on some of the calls against the visitors, I was yelling for them to let the kids play.

[Utephoria]

When I saw David Hall as one of the referees last night, I said to myself this is not going to be pretty. When the first half was decent I thought maybe Mr. Hall has turned a page for the better, but then the second half happened and the true Mr. Hall came out in all his glory. Even PAC12 announcer Don Maclean was annoyed with the second half and wanted it to mercifully end quickly due to the many calls.

There has always been this grudge towards the Utes from Mr. Hall and I don’t know why. Maybe it can be linked to when he got knocked out while refereeing a Ute home game, he was out for a minute. He may have never lived down the embarrassment. I just hope he doesn’t follow us to the Big 12 next year.