Men’s basketball clinches regular-season conference title in dominant 78-59 victory over UTA
The Utah Valley Wolverines Men’s basketball team (23-7, 14-3 Western Athletic Conference) hosted the University of Texas Arlington (11-19, 6-11 Western Athletic Conference) in their second to last home game of the season. The Wolverines dominated on both ends of the court to secure a 78-59 win and improve to 23-7 on the season.
Aziz Bandaogo had a phenomenal game posting a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds. Justin Harmon led the Wolverines in the scoring category putting up 17 points along with three assists and four rebounds. Tim Fuller was a big help on the defensive end with four blocked shots and six defensive rebounds.
The game was even all the way through the first half. Bandaogo was the first to score for the Wolverines, Trey Woodbury and Harmon also helped contribute by knocking double a couple of back to back triples to take an early lead. The game remained tight as both teams were trading buckets back and forth.
With 11:00 Minutes to go in the first half Woodbury hit a jumper that took the lead and sparked a 7-0 run for the Wolverines. The rest of the half UVU struggled to possess defensive rebounds and continued to turn the ball over. This allowed many second chance points and fastbreak opportunities that helped Arlington retake the lead with one minute to go.
Bandaogo sent the Wolverines into the locker room with a putback dunk as time expired to give them the lead and momentum to end the half (32-31).
To start the second half Harmon was the first to score for the Wolverines that started a 5-0 run. Arlington came right back with a 5-0 run of their own but were unable to retake the lead the remainder of the game.
UVU was on fire the entire second half shooting 61% from the field, scoring a total of 44 points. They also came out aggressive on the defensive end forcing nine turnovers in the second half which led to 12 fastbreak points.
With 12 Minutes to go in the game, Le’Tre Darthad knocked down a jumper to extend their lead 55-44. The Wolverines never let up and continued to feed off of the momentum they had, out-scoring the Mavericks by 19 in the second half, which led to a dominant 78-59 win.
The Wolverines picked up a great win to clinch the regular season WAC Championship as they will be the number one seed going into the tournament next week. With one game remaining in the regular season Utah Valley will host SF Austin, Friday March 3rd at 6 p.m. MT. In hopes to attain their 24th win of the season. This game will air live and can be watched on ESPN+.
Kaleb Dyer is a Senior Staff writer for the UVU Review. Kaleb was born and raised in Draper, Utah and is majoring in communications with a minor in journalism. In his free time, Kaleb loves watching all sports but mostly college football and basketball. He loves writing for Utah Valley sports page and his dream is to one day become a sports broadcaster and/or journalist.