The Runnin’ Utes returned to their winning ways as they got the better of the Savannah State Tigers, beating them 99-53 Wednesday night in the Huntsman Center.
Utah was coming off of a rather forgettable performance against Wichita State, where the Utes turned the ball over 19 times. Against the Tigers, they reduced their number of turnovers to just 11.
Head coach Larry Krystkowiak thinks his team played a more complete game than over the weekend. The team had set a goal of only eight turnovers, but despite not achieving this goal, Krystkowiak is pleased to see his team to do a better job of taking care of the ball.
“It’s hard, but we got to keep making progress,” Krystkowiak said. “Certainly 11 is better than what we’ve been dealing with, but moving forward, it’s a focal point.”
The Utes had six players in double figures, with Kyle Kuzma leading the way with 18 points and five assists. He thinks the entire team stepped it up and started to play a lot more as a team.
“We had a different mindset,” Kuzma said.
Lorenzo Bonam followed with 14 points and was a perfect 6-of-6 from the field. He also added four rebounds and seven assists. Brandon Taylor was next with 13 points of his own.
The team moved the ball better than they have all season long, recording a total of 30 assists on 37 made shots.
“I asked our players to quit thinking about ‘me’ shots and start thinking about ‘we’ shots and it was contagious early on,” Krystkowiak said. “We don’t want to pat ourselves in the back too much, but we need to see shots go in and it all starts with sharing the basketball.”
Savannah State opened up the game, like most opposing teams seem do in Salt Lake, by scoring a three-pointer. Although the Utes quickly pushed pass this, Savannah State hung around early on and four minutes into it, were only down 11-8. But the Utes buckled down and quickly got out to a 16-8 lead and by then Taylor had already scored 10 points.
“I felt good, not thinking about making plays for myself and making plays for my teammates,” Taylor said. “It’s amazing when you think of the game like that. We really focused on making plays for each other.”
It was not really a contest from there on out. The Tigers struggled to find the bottom of the net and went into a nine-minute scoring drought in which the Utes jumped out to a 25-8 lead. The Utes’ largest lead during the next series of plays was 27 points.
With about six minutes left in the half, the Tigers drained a three-pointer to make their way to double digits and this sparked a 12-0 run for them. Utah quickly put a stop to this, and Taylor scored a three-pointer at the buzzer to give the Utes a 51-24 lead at halftime.
Utah opened up the second half firing and jumped out to a 35-point lead. While the Tigers attempted to make a run of their own, they also fell into another scoring drought and only managed to score 12 points in 12 minutes into the second half. At that point, the Utes were leading 78-36 with plenty of bench players on the court.
As the bench cleared for the Utes, all players but Austin Eastman recorded points for the Utes, but he did have a block that led to an easy lay-in for Utah on the other end of the court.
Next up, the Utes will head to New York to take on the Duke in Madison Square Garden.
@kbrenneisen