Utes Bulldoze Beavers, 72-61

The Beavers failed to show up in tonight's game, playing poorly in every facet of the game. The Beavs only led in the first minute 1-0 before the Utes would take the lead and never look back. The first half was a physical battle, with plenty of no-calls both way resulting in a low scoring first half, with multitudes of missed shots and turnovers for both teams. The Beavers went into a 2-3 zone which sometimes stifled the Utes, but poor rotations also resulted in several easy dunks and lay-ins for Utah. The Beavers managed to stay in the game by hitting contested shots and also by Utah missing most of their open looks. The half closed with a Roberto Nelson charge into the lane, bringing the Ute lead down to 4 at the half.

The Beavs came out of the locker room in classic fashion, proceeding to get even further down quickly reaching an 11 point deficit which caused an Oregon State timeout. The Beavs made a quick charge to get within seven, but then would not score for five minutes. The Utes made only three shots which were all three point shots, which brought their lead up to 16, but made for an exceptionally unimpressive basketball game. The Beavers would never threaten again and at three minutes the backups came in and that was the game, where the Utes wound up winning 72-61.

Three Beavers were in double figures, Nelson, Devon Collier, and Challe Barton. Barton actually looked for his three point shot and was hitting it today, it took Nelson 13 shots to reach his 18 points and was struggling when he was forced to put the team on his back. Collier scored 10 but they were thoroughly unimpressive as he struggled to find good looks by himself. No other Beaver showed up on offense, Eric Moreland did have 11 rebounds, but it seemed like he was rebounding by himself for most of the game. Ahmad Starks only had two points and I did not even notice him for almost all of the game, it was a disappointing showing from one of OSU's veteran leaders.

The Utes were led by 6-6 freshman Jordan Loveridge with 17 points and 12 rebounds who did damage from the outside but also had six offensive rebounds. Utah also had three other scorers in double figures.

The Beavs just did not show up for this one, there were several uncontested layups and even more times when the defense did not get back in transition which resulted in many open looks from three and just as many layups. The rebounding was also a mess, the Beavs tried to box out but were muscled out by the Ute bigs. The offense was also as stale as I've seen it all year. Challe Barton was the lone bright spot in this game, and at this point it might be time just to let the young guys get more playing time.

Maybe the Beavs need a pep talk from Jerry Sloan too.