After its first loss of the season, the Utah men’s basketball team redeemed itself against Montana State on Thursday, Dec. 1, with a 92-84 victory against the Bobcats.
Devon Daniels scored 18 points, and he added four assists. Tyler Rawson finished the night with 17 points, and Kuzma followed with 16 points. The Utes would have an additional four players finish scoring in double digits.
“There was pretty good effort on our part,” said head coach Larry Krystkowiak. “I thought we had a number of guys contributing. There wasn’t a lot of defense from either team. Montana State is a really explosive, offensive team, and they took advantage. We took advantage of being bigger in the post, but it was a good win.”
To start the game, Utah got off on the right foot with Parker Van Dyke scoring a three pointer. But for a while Montana State answered shot-for-shot against the Utes, and it even took a 11-10 lead over Utah early on in the first half.
However, it didn’t last long, and the Utes got back on top as Van Dyke and JoJo Zamora contributed 10 and 15 points, repetitively, to their team, and the Utes finished the first half with a 47-35lead over the bobcats.
The second half saw a lot of more action, and each team committed 22 fouls against each other. Utah seemed to struggle in the second half of the game.
About six minutes into the second half the Bobcats slowly creeped up on the Utes, and at one point they only trailed by four points. But Utah did not falter the entire time, and it maintained no less than a four point lead, however, the Utes couldn’t extend that lead to the double digits.
Fortunately for the Utes, they managed to turn it on towards the end of the game, and they extended their lead.
“I just think we need to focus,” said junior Kyle Kuzma. “We just have to do a better job at focusing on the ball and being disciplined in the offense.”
Up next, the Utes will take on Utah Valley on Tuesday, Dec. 6. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m.
“UVU is coming in, and that is the next focus,” Krystkowiak said. “They have a lot of different weapons and they play at a fast tempo. They have a lot of high-power guys. And we have to be ready to go.”
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