Oregon St. at Utah Game Thread

Oregon St. (14-8, 4-6) at Utah (5-17, 2-8) at the Jon M. Huntsman Center at 3:00 PM MST (2 PM PST) / No TV / KEJO 1240 AM / KPAM 860 AM (Streamed)

Oregon St. concludes their trip to the Rocky Mountains with a stop off in Salt Lake City to take on Utah.

The Beavers saw Colorado get away from them in the latter stages of the first half, and the Buffs led by double digits the rest of the game, eventually winning 82-60. Oregon St. shot poorly from the perimeter against the best defensive team in the conference, but also got out run by the Buffs offensively.

Jared Cunningham and Devon Collier co-led Oregon St., with 12 points apiece, and Roberto Nelson came off the bench to add 10, mostly from the free throw line. But the balanced Buffs had 5 players who scored from 10 to 16 points. Further, Colorado dominated on the boards, getting a dozen more than Oregon St. did. As a result, the Beavers had their 3 game winning streak snapped, and dropped into a tie with Washington St. for 8th. place in the conference.

The Utes saw an upset opportunity get away when Oregon went on an 11-0 run over 5 minutes that erased Utah's last lead, and turned it into a double digit 69-59 Duck advantage with a minute to go. Nothing really changed after that except the stats, and Oregon claimed a 79-68 win. It was the third consecutive loss for Utah, which lowered them into 11th. place in the Pac-12.

Chris Hines had a co-game high 20 point effort for Utah, tied with Oregon's Devoe Joseph, and Cedric Martin contributed 15. The telling stat for the game was Utah's shooting percentage from the field falling way off after halftime, while Oregon was improving their accuracy.

The trip to Rice Ecles Stadium during football season didn't end well on the field, but there's hope for a better outcome next door at the Huntsman Center. Utah was not only picked to finish last in the Pac-12 in their initial campaign, there was serious doubt after the Utes lost 8 straight after a season opening win over San Diego Christian as to whether they would even win again.

That proved to be an overly pessimistic view of the state of Utah basketball, but not terribly so.

Pending the advent of the Pac-12 Network next season, there's remarkably once again no television for this game.

Here's the place to imagine what's going on, and theorize as to what happened in Boulder.

Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com