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Show 5 Wednesday Novemeber 13, 2013 SPORTS UPCOMING SPORTS EVENTS THURSDAY: Volleyball Utah @ Arizona www.dailyutahchronicle.corn FOOTBALL Utes hope to fine-tune 0-line Austin Heywood 7 p.m. Tucson, Ariz. STAFF WRITER FRIDAY: Women's Basketball Utah vs. Nebraska 5:30 p.m. Huntsman Center Men's Basketball Utah vs. UC Davis 8 p.m. Huntsman Center Soccer Utah @ Texas A&M 6 p.m. College Station, Texas NCAA TOP 25 SOCCER RANK TEAM RECORD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Virginia 20-1-0 17-1-2 UCLA Florida St. 16-1-3 Virginia Tech 15-3-2 North Carolina 17-4-0 Florida 17-4-1 Portland 16-2-1 Marquette 18-3-0 Santa Clara 14-4-1 Nebraska 18-3-1 Michigan 16-3-1 West Virginia 15-3-2 Texas A&M 17-4-1 South Carolina 16-3-2 18-1-1 Denver UCF 16-2-4 Stanford 13-5-1 17-2-2 Texas Tech BYU 14-4-1 Georgetown 15-2-2 Washington St. 15-3-3 Mississippi 15-5-2 Notre Dame 11-7-1 Penn St. 14-6-1 Boston University 14-3-4 CONOR BARRY/The Daily Utah Chronicle Utah quarterback Travis Wilson is sacked by ASU defensive lineman Gannon Conway on Saturday Nov. 9 at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Wilson was sacked four times during the game. MEN'S BASKETBALL Utah football this year has been kind of like an old family car, one that is usually dependable but always seems to have little things breaking down. As soon as one thing is fixed, something else seems to go haywire. At times this season, the car has run smoothly, at other times the engine wouldn't even start, and through it all, Ute fans have been taken for quite a ride. At season's start, Utah's offense was running efficiently. Through the first four games of the year, the Utes averaged 42 points and just over 50o yards of total offense per game. It seemed as though Utah's quarterback woes were finally over with Travis Wilson beginning to emerge as a dual-threat. At times, Utah's pass defense became a pesky problem that kept the car from running at full steam. The secondary gave up 443 passing yards in an overtime loss to Oregon State. Turnovers became a recurring problem, both the lack of creating turnovers on defense and the habit of losing the ball on offense. After losing a close game to UCLA in which Wilson threw six interceptions, the Utes did some fine-tuning. Head coach Kyle Whittingham challenged his defense to step up and make big stops late in games. Things were finally firing on all cylinders when Utah upset then-No. 5 Stanford, playing well on both sides of the ball and winning the turnover battle. Utah's defense has continued to improve since that victory against the Cardinal, but the offensive play has broken down, and the car has stalled out. In three consecutive losses, Utah See FOOTBALL page 6 THE GREAT DEBATE Team can Does win over Geoducks mean anything? learn from T Evergreen T victory Trouncing is nothing to brag about Utah shows promise for solid season Ryan Miller STAFF WRITER After a 128-44 win, finding negatives in the Runnin' Utes' play presents a challenge. A point margin that large shows that one team is clearly superior, as was the case Friday when Utah dismantled Evergreen State. The Utes don't want to read too much into the lopsided victory but still think there are things they can learn. Following the game, Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak said that the seasonopening blowout will be the only time this season that he and the coaches do not break down the film, but the coach does not want to throw it away like it meant nothing. "I think we gained some confidence," Krystkowiak said. "Between Jeremy Olsen and Renan [Lenz] we needed to jump start both of those guys. They're our tandem at the five at this point." With the 128-point performance, the Utes set a new Huntsman Center record. However, Kystkowiak said the Utes didn't run many set plays against the Geoducks, so it will be hard to gauge where the offense really is. "But the little things," Krystkowiak See BASKETBALL page 8 he Runnin' Utes didn't just beat the Evergreen State Geoducks in their season opener last Friday. Utah crushed them without remorse like they were flattening a slug under a steamroller. The Utes put up 128 points, their 84-point victory is a new Huntsman Center record, and just as the old point record was broken, so was the collective spirit of the Evergreen State squad. In reality, the contest was more like lunchtime at In-N-Out Burger than a basketball game with the number of Utes who got doubledoubles. Yes, the win was fun to watch and undoubtedly a confidence booster for the team, but fans and players alike would be wise to not get their hopes up on account of the lopsided victory. After all, it was never a fair fight for the Geoducks. Evergreen State is an NAIA team from the Cascade Collegiate Conference. Yeah, I'd never heard of it either. Not only that, but the Geoducks finished last season in the conference cellar. Man for man, a team from a small conference like this one could never hope to match up with a Division I team. Evergreen State does not have a single player on its roster over 6-foot-7. Just to put that in perspective, consider this. East High School, which is a stone's throw away from the U campus, had two players on its roster last AUSTIN HEYWOOD Staff-Writer year who were 6-foot-9. Maybe Utah should have scheduled East for its home opener and saved the Geoducks a road trip. But forget about what happened on the court, there is an unavoidable issue with Evergreen State's mascot name. A geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck) is "among the world's largest clams," according to the school's website. Geoducks look like a huge snail and have an average lifespan of 147 years. This is sad, because that means they have to live a long, long time with the shame of being an ugly clam with a bad name. How much pride should the Utes take in beating a school whose mascot is a mollusk? The mascot name wouldn't be as embarrassing if it wasn't such an accurate reflection of how the team plays basketball. There's just nothing fast, intimidating or powerful about an unusually large clam. Apparently geoducks are a delicacy in some countries, which is appropriate, because Friday See HEYWOOD page 8 Vote on who won this week he Utah men's basketball team played in its first game of the season last weekend, but not a whole lot of competition happened. The Runnin' Utes went on to win the contest against the Evergreen State Geoducks 128-44. With the incredibly convincing victory, many have wondered if Utah has turned a corner and will be a legitimate threat in the Pac-12 or if the opposition had such a lack of talent that it masked some of the Utes' major weaknesses. Although I think it was a little bit of both, I truly believe this Utah team is becoming a squad that can no longer be considered an automatic victory for opponents. Turn the clocks back to last season when the Utes showed a lot of promise. They were leaps and bounds better than they were the previous season, and they took some very talented teams such as UCLA and Arizona right to the brink in regular season contests and beat Oregon. Not only that, but Utah made a surprising run in the Pac-12 Tournament, beating the No. 2-seed Cal before losing to the eventual champion Ducks in the semifinals. Sure, the Utes have lost some key pieces from last year's team, namely Jason Washburn, who was a vocal and physi- GRIFFIN ADAMS Staff-Writer cal leader on the team. While Washburn is a big loss, Utah has gained so much more. Not only do the Utes return some of their better players in Jordan Loveridge and Brandon Taylor, both of whom saw significant minutes as freshmen last year, but head coach Larry Krystkowiak and his staff recruited very well and added some muchneeded talent. One player who will push Utah to be a competitive team in the Pac-12 this year is Delon Wright, a junior college transfer who is already making an impact. Last Friday in the season-opening shellacking of Evergreen State, Wright nearly recorded a quadruple-double with 17 points, io rebounds, seven assists and seven steals. While the competition will get more fierce once conference play starts, this was a very promising start for a player who has just transferred into a new program. Another reason I believe See www.dailyutahchronicle.com ADAMS page 8 |