Despite shooting woes, Utah Utes cruise to victory over Weber State Wildcats in Beehive Classic game

SALT LAKE CITY — It’s not often a coach says, “I’m proud of our guys because they didn’t shoot well,” but that’s exactly what Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said after his team’s 60-49 victory over Weber State Saturday afternoon in the Beehive Classic at Vivint Arena.

The Utes shot just 34.5% from the field and just 20% from 3-point range but were still able to win their eighth game in 10 tries this season over a Wildcat team that fell to 3-6 on the season.

What Krystkowiak meant about being proud of his team for not shooting well he was that they did several other things well to enable them to come away with a pretty comfortable victory.

The Utes, who have been struggling with rebounding in recent games, outboarded the Wildcats by 14, 47-33, and came up with 17 offensive boards. The Utes also hit their goal of just 12 turnovers, which would have been in single figures except for some sloppiness in the final two minutes when the Utes turned the ball over three times. Defensively, the Utes shut down Weber State’s leading scorer Jerrick Harding, who went 5-for-13 on the day and needed some late baskets to get up to 17 points, four below his average.

“We did a terrific job on the glass and up until the last three or four minutes we did a great job of taking care of the ball,” said Krystkowiak. “We had a stretch of 12 minutes where we didn’t turn it over, then we didn’t know quite how to close it out.”

As for the defense on Harding, the Ute coach said, “It was a collective effort. He’s the head of their snake certainly and I thought we did a good job for the most part. When our coverage was dialed in, we did a pretty good job and made him miss. I was proud of our team collectively for stopping him.”

Timmy Allen led Utah in scoring for the 10th time this season, with 19 points, and was the only Ute to finish in double figures. But the Utes had balanced scoring after that with three players, Riley Battin, Branden Carlson and Mikael Jantunen, each finishing with nine points, and Both Gach adding eight.

The Utes were playing without starting point guard Rylan Jones, who sat out the game in street clothes after suffering a rib injury against Central Arkansas last week. With him out, Gach took over point guard duties and played 37 minutes, while freshmen Jaxon Brenchley made his first start of the season and finished with three points and three rebounds in 25 minutes

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This was the first meeting between the Utes and Wildcats since 2011 when the two teams met in Ogden and Weber stomped the Utes 80-51.

Earlier this week, when asked why the two teams hadn’t played during the last eight years, Krystkowiak replied, “I didn’t want to play them because they kicked our butts the last time we played them.”

It took the Utes a while to get going, perhaps because they didn’t have Jones running the offense. 

“Rylan is a calming influence,” said Krystkowiak. “Missing any piece is difficult,”

The Utes trailed by six early on, but took the lead for good at 23-20 on a 3-pointer by Alfonso Plummer and went into halftime with a 31-25 lead.

Weber State coach Randy Rahe lamented his team’s poor shooting — 34.5% in the first half and 33.9% for the game, saying his team missed way too many open shots.

“We missed a ton of open shots,” he said. “I don’t think we took bad shots, but for some reason they didn’t go in. Their size is a factor, it makes you think when guys are flying at you Their defense was good, but if we make three-quarters of those open shots, we’ve got a chance.”

The Utes began the second half with six straight points and soon increased the lead to 16 at 50-34. The lead got as high as 18 at 58-40 before the Wildcats closed the margin at the end.

“It was ugly one, but I’m glad we were able to tough it out and now it’s on to the next one,” said Allen.

The next one is a tough one, against No. 8 Kentucky Wednesday night in Las Vegas. Then the Utes will play San Diego State Saturday night in Los Angeles before starting Pac-12 play on Jan. 2 against Oregon State.