The University of Utah was one win away from advancing to the Pac-12 Championship game for the first time since joining the conference. But they had one team standing in their way and this team just beat the Utes 3 weeks ago in Eugene. You guessed right, the Ducks. The Utes came into the Pac-12 Semifinals coming off a dominating 80-56 win over Stanford and in that game, the Utes trailed by 5 at the half, 39-34. Then the Utes came out of the locker room and outscored the Cardinal 46-17. The Ducks came into Friday’s game coming off a 93-85 win over Colorado and was in a similar situation as Utah, trailed by 3 at the half 37-34 but came out and outscored Colorado 59-48 in the second half. Not as dominate as Utah but scoring 59 points in a half is incredible.
The Runnin’ Utes knew they had to stop one particular player for Oregon – the guy who won the Pac-12 Player of the Year, Joseph Young. I know what you are going to say next. That Delon Wright should have won the prestigious conference award and I agree but it is what it is. When these two teams met in Eugene on February 22nd, Joseph Young was held to 14 points on 5 of 16 shooting but Dillion Brooks led the Ducks with 19 points on 7 of 10 shooting. The Utes knew they would have their hands full with an Oregon team that loves to push the tempo and play with pace on offense.
The Semifinal game started as one of the NBA All-Star weekend competitions – the 3-point shootout – as each team traded 3’s the first 12 minutes of the game before they started to slow down a little bit, but the Utes went into the locker room with a 31-30 lead. The second half was very entertaining as the teams went back and forth before the Utes found themselves down by 6 points with 3 minutes left in the game. Then Brandon Taylor hit a 3 to put the Utes within 3, followed by Delon Wright taking over from the foul line to even up the game. With under 1 minute left Oregon scored to put themselves up by 2. Larry Krystkowiak didn’t call a timeout as Delon Wright came down and was bumped by Jordan Bell. Since the Ducks were in the double bonus, Delon had a chance to tie the game with 7.2 seconds left in the game. Wright hit both free throws and the game was tied at 64. Dana Altman didn’t call a timeout as Joseph Young brought the ball down and launched a 30-foot 3-pointer and drilled it giving the Utes 1.1 seconds left to heave a half court shot that fell short and allowed the Oregon Ducks to advance to the Pac-12 Title game to face Arizona on Saturday at 9pm MT.
Brandon Taylor led the way for the Utes with a career high 24 points on 9 of 15 shooting from the field and 6 of 9 from downtown.
Brandon joined Bill Riley and Jimmy Soto on the postgame show to talk about his performance and the Utes heading into the NCAA Tournament HERE
Delon Wright added 16 points on 5-8 shooting from the field and 1-1 from downtown. He also had 9 rebounds and 5 assists. After scoring 18 points in the win against Stanford, Jordan Loveridge struggled and did not score going 0-7 from the field and 0-5 from 3. He did pull down 7 rebounds. Jakbo Poeltl also struggled scoring 7 points and 8 rebounds on 2 of 7 shooting and 3-8 from the free throw line.
Joseph Young scored 7 points in the first half and scored 18 in the second half to end the game with 25 points on 8-16 shooting and 3-8 from downtown. Dillon Brooks added 14 points and Elgin Cook had 13 points to lead Oregon.
WHAT’S NEXT
The Utes will have to wait until Selection Sunday (4pm MT on CBS) to find out who/where/when they will play in the NCAA Tournament. The Utes résumé looks like this:
Conference W-L – 13-5
Non-Conference W-L – 10-3
Overall W-L – 23-8
Strength of Schedule: 31
Wins vs. Teams with RPI 1-50 – Wichita State, at BYU and vs. UCLA
Wins vs. Teams with RPI 51-100 – UNLV, Colorado, at Arizona State, Washington, at Colorado, at Oregon State and at Arizona State
Losses vs. Teams with RPI 1-50 – at San Diego State, at Kansas, at Arizona, at UCLA, at Oregon, Arizona and Oregon (Pac-12 Tournament)
Utah’s only “Bad” loss was at Washington on March 7th.
BRACKETOLOGY
Joe Lunardi (ESPN) has Utah as a 5 seed playing in Portland in the Midwest region against 12 seed BYU.
Jerry Palm (CBS Sports) has Utah as a 7 seed playing in Seattle in the South Region against 10 seed Purdue.
I would agree more with Joe Lunardi. I think with the Utes strength of schedule they should be a 5 seed, and I think they have done enough to be a 5 seed. I don’t think they are a 4 seed though.
The madness is almost here!!! Stay tuned to ESPN 700, this website, The Bullpen and The Bill & OC Show for the latest with the Runnin Utes in the NCAA Tournament.
