Awful Start Kills U. in NCAA Tourney
Give the Utes credit for fighting back and giving themselves a chance to win near the end of their 84-71 loss to Arizona tonight in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. But still, that start was an unmitigated disaster.
The Utes looked as if they had never seen a full-court press before, never mind one applied by players as staggeringly fast and athletic as the Wildcats. Still, coach Jim Boylen said "we were ready for the press. We expected the press. We practiced the press. Didn't do a good job of handling the pressure."
And that is your leading candidate for understatement of the year.
The Utes had their heads spinning within seconds after tip-off, with point guard Luka Drca in particular looking as flustered as ever. They made just one basket in the game's first 7 1/2 minutes, shooting miserably and watching center Luke Nevill get into foul trouble while finding just about every way to commit a turnover. Long passes out of bounds. Bounce passes inside. Traveling calls, and just flat-out having the ball taken away from them.
In all, the Utes committed 14 turnovers before halftime -- 20 for the game -- at which point they were lucky to be trailing by only five.
"They came out aggressive as can be, and they're long and athletic," point guard Tyler Kepkay said. "They just made it tough in the very beginning, and I think that kind of hurt us for the rest of the game because I think if you take away that first -- I don't know, six, seven minutes of the game, it's a different game. But that's the way it goes."
The Utes did battle back to cut it to 64-62 on Kepkay's three-pointer with 5:16 left -- the Utes hit only 8 of 32 on the night, though -- but coughed up two more turnovers and missed a shot while the Wildcats scored six straight points as part of a 10-1 run that put the game away.
"The second half, we were grinding uphill and grinding uphill, and got it to two and just didn't make enough plays," Boylen said. "I thought we had some good looks. I thought we had the right guys shooting the ball, and they didn't go down. We won the rebound game, we lost the turnover game and we were 8-for-32 from the three. Tough to win that way, tough to win."
The Utes looked as if they had never seen a full-court press before, never mind one applied by players as staggeringly fast and athletic as the Wildcats. Still, coach Jim Boylen said "we were ready for the press. We expected the press. We practiced the press. Didn't do a good job of handling the pressure."
And that is your leading candidate for understatement of the year.
The Utes had their heads spinning within seconds after tip-off, with point guard Luka Drca in particular looking as flustered as ever. They made just one basket in the game's first 7 1/2 minutes, shooting miserably and watching center Luke Nevill get into foul trouble while finding just about every way to commit a turnover. Long passes out of bounds. Bounce passes inside. Traveling calls, and just flat-out having the ball taken away from them.
In all, the Utes committed 14 turnovers before halftime -- 20 for the game -- at which point they were lucky to be trailing by only five.
"They came out aggressive as can be, and they're long and athletic," point guard Tyler Kepkay said. "They just made it tough in the very beginning, and I think that kind of hurt us for the rest of the game because I think if you take away that first -- I don't know, six, seven minutes of the game, it's a different game. But that's the way it goes."
The Utes did battle back to cut it to 64-62 on Kepkay's three-pointer with 5:16 left -- the Utes hit only 8 of 32 on the night, though -- but coughed up two more turnovers and missed a shot while the Wildcats scored six straight points as part of a 10-1 run that put the game away.
"The second half, we were grinding uphill and grinding uphill, and got it to two and just didn't make enough plays," Boylen said. "I thought we had some good looks. I thought we had the right guys shooting the ball, and they didn't go down. We won the rebound game, we lost the turnover game and we were 8-for-32 from the three. Tough to win that way, tough to win."
posted by www.sltrib.com @ 9:25 PM |
1 Comments:
As always, thank you Michael C. Lewis for your great coverage this year of the Utes. Get the guy a mic......
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