It’s almost near. The grand finale matchup for regular season title supremacy and No. 1 seeding in the Mountain West Conference, as Utah visits Wyoming March 2.
The only predicament is the Utes have a ‘tweener game with the Mountain West’s last place team, Colorado State, and the Utes pride themselves on taking it one game at a time.
“The next two games are huge, but we’ll just focus on the first one,” said sophomore swingman Nick Jacobson.
The Utes (19-6, 9-3) better. The red and white lost 73-65 in Fort Collins, Colo., last year. Also, Utah’s 67-62 victory over CSU (11-16, 2-10) in the Huntsman Center Feb. 2 wasn’t pretty.
Although the Utes never trailed in the game, Utah’s 15 point lead with 6:51 left withered away to four in the final minute of the game. Luckily for the Utes, the horn sounded and they escaped with their 13th straight win.
The Utes shot at a 58.8 percent clip from the field, but five misfires from the free throw line in the final 1:14 kept the game close. As a team, the U shot just 56.3 percent from the charity stripe.
Utah rode the shoulders of forward Britton Johnsen, who scored a career high 28 points despite shooting a meager 7 16 from the foul line.
Since that game, Johnsen has kept up the scoring fad. The junior surpassed Nick Jacobson as the U’s leading scorer, averaging 13.4 points and a team-high 6.3 rebounds a game.
One Ram the Utes will have to corral is CSU forward Brian Greene. In the teams’ Feb. 2 showdown, Greene shot 13-of 19 from the field for a game high 29 points to go along with 6 rebounds.
With a win over Greene and CSU, Utah would contend for its eighth straight regular season conference title.
Utah and Wyoming are currently deadlocked with three losses apiece. However, while the Utes tackle last-place CSU, the Cowboys welcome third-place BYU, which already owns a victory over Wyoming in the Marriott Center.
If both Utah and Wyoming win, it will set up a showdown for the top seeding in the MWC Championship on March 7 through 9 in Las Vegas. The top seed will likely face a first round matchup versus CSU instead of scrappy Air Force.
“We’ve got a tough road trip and we need to get two wins,” said point guard Travis Spivey, whose Utes are but a win away from the magic number 20. “We’re trying to get a bid into the NCAA Tournament.”