I arrived very late, 7 minutes or so into the game, and we were down 10-25. My only comment, is that if you want people to arrive early, or close to on-time to Basketball games, don’t schedule them at 6:00 PM on a work night.
Settling into our seats, was me, and in my wife’s seat, my son, in from out of town for the week. He grew up watching Ute basketball and was thrilled to happen to be here for the YBU game.
The team was NOT playing well, but I do not have great expectations for this year, as the team is so young, even if they eventually might turn out to be talented. And then, we might also eventually turn out to retain some talent.
THE REASONS WE WON (in reverse order of importance):
The Utes kept fighting, in spite of the lack of performance/efficiency, which kept them from going too far in the hole. Props to the players and coaches.
BYU seemed to have every opportunity to put us completely away, but seemed to fail to do so.
The real reason we won has to do with exactly one thing:
Just before half-time, it was announced that people should remain in their seats for the intermission, as there would be a special presentation honoring Majerus for his recent hall of fame induction. A large, obnoxious group of BYU fans filling the KK section of the upper bowl, chanted, or sang, or something to generate so much noise that most of the arena could not hear the first 2/3 of the presentation.
The Fat Man was clearly watching and between this completely unreasonable act of disrespect, and the fact that Burgess is an assistant coach for BYU, he pulled every string he could from his new position and overturned the result.
God Bless you Fat Man! Still winning games for Utah, better than any subsequent Utah coach!
Regarding the 6pm tip, same for me. I got there mid first half, and that was about the best I could do.
There’s a lot to break down from this game.
First, there’s a lot of talk about the foul disparity. I felt like style of play affected that. Utes were playing more physical and drawing contact and BYU was shooting faders and deep, uncontested shots. Those styles will show up in a disparity. Add to that that it’s not uncommon for the home team to have the calls favor them, I think those two elements add up to an explainable, and not necessarily “the refs screwed us!” result.
Yoeli leaving the game is an interesting point. Put a gun to my head, and yes, that may have been a “difference that made the difference.” But I’ll say this to counter: the Utes started playing Childs differently in the second half. It may have been strategic by LK or borne out of necessity with Carlson in foul trouble, but once they started putting guys like Allen on him who are shorter but gave up less ground, Childs was having a harder time getting to the rim and getting off the shots he likes. So, yeah, it’s hard to affect a game when you’re not in it, but Utah was adjusting to him before the injury.
Jones was a stud.
We’ve all seen the caveat a thousand times now, but if LK can keep this team more or less together, we’ll finally see some of the success we’ve felt we’ve been lacking in the last few years. The next 2-3 years look are packed with as much potential as I’ve seen. I won’t predict how far they’ll go, etc., but we should at least be tasting the NCAAs again.
That makes me sad. I hope you are exaggerating, or if not, the University down south issues an apology or some sort of reprimand. That really disgraces their fan base. The man is dead for god’s sake, let the University and fans honor him. That is perhaps the most pathetic thing I’ve heard yet from their kind, and that says a lot. I long for the day they are no longer a part of our season in football or basketball.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t hear anything over the presentation. I definitely was aware of the guys over in KK, they made their presence known throughout the game. I was in the upper bowl in BB and didn’t notice anything from them or any other BYU fans during the Majerus video.
Hated to miss the game as I haven’t missed a Utes-Cougars game in the Hunty in a long long time, but with it being my wife’s birthday, felt it was best to give seats to other Ute fans. Won’t be able to watch until this evening, but from looking at the news stories and stats looks like Timmy and Rylan were stellar, Jantunen played impressively off the bench, and Battin had one of his better outings. Team was challenged by an opponent that came out red hot, but battled back down the stretch. (Do hope it’s just cramps for Childs, hate it to be something worse).
Love it that after Rylan missed the late potentially lead changing layup, Timmy came over to him, said to forget about it and told him he’d get another chance. Timmy’s becoming a good on the court leader out there.
And given some of the usual antics of the visiting fans, players, and coaches, (intentionally disrupting the Majerus tribute, the “Oregon Fan” dressed in the blue “Utah Sucks” shirt, Toolson telling Rylan’s father his son flops, and Pope sarcastically praising the officials) it’s so gratifying to beat them again. At least unlike their last 2 visits to the Hunty, no BYU player got ejected for a flagrant foul.
The BYU fans singing were in the upper deck of the section I was in. They were singing their fight song at the end of the half, not doing anything to intentionally disrespect anybody. This is a non issue.
I had the same thought this morning about that disrespectful showing. I can’t understand why some Cougar fans would show such disrespect. We knew they were there, as I estimate 1/3 of the upper bowl were BYU fans. They had a double digit lead, the BYU team was already in the locker room, who were they showing support too?
I was all the way across the arena, so i could still hear the presentation, but I was distracted by the group. Those closer to that section would have had a hard time hearing the presentation.