“We always know offensively we have a lot of weapons”, Miami point guard Angel Rodriguez, a Puerto Rico native, told reporters.
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Friday’s defeat was such a bad loss, the worst since a 71-39 drubbing to Arizona in the 2014 Pac-12 Tournament, that Krystkowiak wouldn’t allow any of his players to be interviewed after the game, perhaps the first time he’s done that since being coach at Utah.
Utah’s bench produced only seven points Thursday on 2-of-10 shooting.3. But his three-point shooting is a problem (for opponents). “That’s a big thing for us”.
“We did a very good job obviously early in the game”, Owls coach Fran Dunphy said.
DeCosey scored 24 points and added 10 rebounds for his second career double-double, and Bond had 13 points and 13 rebounds, but the Owls (1-2) could never catch up.
Using a season-high 27 points from Sheldon McClellan and a double-double from Tonye Jekiri, Miami easily cruised past Utah with a 90-66 victory and advanced to Sunday’s final vs. Butler. Dingle 0-4 0-0 0, S.Alston 0-3 0-0 0, T.Lowe 2-5 4-5 9. And the frustration finally boiled over for Krystkowiak, who picked up a quick technical foul after springing up to protest a no-call on a driving miss from Jakob Poeltl with 13:32 left.
Fresh off a 105-79 demolition against Mississippi State on Thursday, the Hurricanes backed it up with an even more impressive performance during the second round of the Puerto Rico Tipoff against the Utes. King caught fire early with five 3-pointers in the first eight minutes of the game.
Carlos Morris also provided the bulk of Minnesota’s rebounds with 7, in addition to landing 12 points.
“Our team needs to get tougher collectively and individually”, Krystkowiak said. Guard Trey Lewis added 16 points and was 8 of 8 from the free-throw line. Butler had just five turnovers….
Then in the second half they got within 10 at 62-52 on a Loveridge 3-pointer with 9:34 left.
“After having a morning game that I kind of slept walk through the first half yesterday, I really wanted to come out and make a statement”, King said.
While Krystkowiak talked about his team’s own deficiencies, he also praised Hurricanes, who deserved it because of the way they played.
“You can’t defend turnovers”, he said. “It just puts too much strain on your basketball squad to have to do that and it’s really hard to overcome”.
Takeaways aside, Larranaga noted teams don’t usually win games like this after letting a team shoot 50 percent from the field and 38 percent from 3-point range.
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Temple will still play in the consolation game on Sunday against either Miami or #16 Utah.
