HOOPS: The Utes stole one
Posted By: Gilly
<vandamanfan@yahoo.com>
Date: Sunday, 17 February 2002, at 11:26 a.m.
Small crowd, no head coach, playing Air Force. All the ingredients were there for a letdown, and man did it ever happen.
Getting down by 13 to Air Force is suicide, because it is so hard to come back against a team that milks 30 seconds of clock on every possession.
With the score AFA 22 - Utah 9, and most of the Utah starters huffing and puffing because they were getting all the minutes, I think everyone but the team assumed the game was over. The fans were talking about Olympic events and booing the Utes. Yes, booing. I know many of the boos were for the officials, but when Utah threw the ball away and missed free throws, the boos came down from the crowd. I don't know if I've ever seen the Utes get booed at home before.Until Cullen came in and hit some shots, Utah had three dunks from Britton and a short jumper from Jacobson, and I guess one free throw(out of 6) from Britton. At least Britton was out there trying to make plays on both ends of the floor. It looks to me like Jacobson has lost his confidence from the field and Britton has lost his from the line.
Hunsaker has a completely different subsitution pattern than Majerus. Spivey played about the first 10 minutes before getting a rest, then Osimani played a minute and SPivey was back. Osmundson and Caton had their minutes cut way back -- although I think it was when Spivey got his second foul in the first half and Osm came in that Utah made its run. Osm did have a charge and a missed layup, but I don't think that explains why he sat the whole second half.
THe Utes couldn't feed the post to save their lives last night. Sometimes it looks like the passer actually waits until the defense recovers and gets all over the postman before he'll throw the ball in there. Koford got no shots. He didn't start the second half, and only played when Cullen was exhausted and had 4 fouls.
Before the game, Hunsaker said they really hadn't figured out Air Force's switching, matchup man-to-man. And he was right. The Utes had no idea how the attack this thing. I kept thinking that almost every Ute could take his man off the dribble to the hole, but no one seemed to want to do it. Jeff did a couple times in the second half, and Britton did a few times, but no one else.
You'd think by this point in the season, the Utes would know where people were going to cut, but they threw the ball away a few times last night just on bad passes/bad cuts, or miscommunications. We were begging for shots on goal at one point, as Utah seemed stuck in the turnover mode that they got into at UNLV.
Anyway, the team kept playing hard(or at least Cullen, Britton and Jeff did) and gutted out a win. Cullen was the man again. Nice to see him get a standing ovation when he fouled out.
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