After what he did Saturday against Oregon State, Taylor might get the chance next time.
Taylor scored a career-high 23 points, including two key late baskets, and dished out eight assists as the Utes beat the Beavers 80-69 at the Huntsman Center in front of a crowd of 14,044. With the victory, Utah earned its first conference win and improved to 12-2 on the season.
Early on, it looked as though the Utes were going to be negatively affected by the heart-wrenching loss to Oregon. Utah came out flat, which allowed OSU to get open shots almost at will. The sluggish start also was apparent on the offensive end, where the Utes struggled to adapt to the Beavers’ 1-3-1 trap.
With OSU leading 17-15 partway through the first frame, Utah kicked up its defensive intensity. Suddenly, Beaver shots were being challenged and the Utes used that as a catalyst to go on an 18-0 run to take a lead they would never surrender.
“Roberto Nelson is the head of the snake,” Utah head coach Larry Kryskowiak said. “We needed to limit him. We knew the rest of the cast was capable and they made some shots. We were willing to live with the outside shooting because we didn’t want Roberto to get going.”
Nelson came into Saturday leading the Pac-12 in scoring with an average of 21.4 points per game. Taylor was the man who chased Nelson around, and for the majority of the game he held Nelson in check. Krystkowiak called Taylor’s defensive performance “terrific.” Nelson finished with 16.
“Nelson ran me all over the court and off screens,” Taylor said. “He has so many different speeds. I wasn’t too tired. That’s just my conditioning. I was ready to run him all over the court on the other end.”
In the second half, Utah appeared to be on the brink of breaking open the game for good, as a monster block by Delon Wright led to a Dakarai Tucker transition three that put the Utes up 61-49 with just over 11 minutes remaining. The near-capacity Huntsman Center roared in approval and Utah had all the momentum.
But the Beavers fought back. After the Tucker three, OSU went on an 11-2 run to cut the Utah lead to three. Much like Oregon on Thursday, the Beavers had taken the Utes’ best shot, but punched right back. This time around, Taylor had an answer.
After OSU cut the deficit to a one-possession game, Taylor hit a fade away jumper just before the shot clock went off to give the Utes a little breathing room. Then he hit a three to give Utah a double-digit lead. From there, the Utes coasted to victory.
“I could lie to you and say I drew up all kinds of fancy stuff and rubbed my fingers together and created all this magic, but Brandon just had that look in his eye,” Krystkowiak said. “He’s got some moxie to him and he’s obviously got a lot of courage to be able to step in those situations and take those shots.”
After struggling from behind the arc against the Ducks, Utah connected from distance all afternoon against OSU. As a team, the Utes shot 12-of-22 from downtown, which set a season-best mark.
Utah returns to action on Wednesday when it travels to Washington for a 9 p.m. showdown with the Huskies.