Jordan Loveridge, Jakob Poeltl and Kyle Kuzma have led the way so far for Utah.
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Norense Odiase worked his way to a career-high tying 10 rebounds coupled with four points.
The 105 points marked the first time the Hurricanes had scored at least 100 points against a Division I opponent since beating Savannah State 105-65 in January 2004. Bonam attributed his consistency to him sticking to his game plan. “I was just going to tip it in. My mindset was to be aggressive and go hard”, Bonam said. Utah struggled to get breathing room against Texas Tech after struggling with poor shooting for much of the second half. He was born in San Juan in December 1992 and left the island as a 15-year-old to come to the United States to play basketball and pursue a college scholarship, first ending up at Kansas State before transferring to Miami (2-0).
Smith, however, didn’t like that his team turned the ball over 17 times and let the Panthers shoot 58 percent in the second half. Utah made 21 of 27 free throws, including 13 of 16 after halftime.
According to Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak, getting so many attempts comes down to being more physical.
“That was a big boost for us coming into halftime”, Krystkowiak said.
While Utah struggled from the line against Southern Utah, shooting a bleak 56.0 percent from the line, it has done well since, shooting 75.0 percent against SDSU and 77.8 percent against Texas Tech. Guard Devaugntah Williams scored 13 points and guard Toddrick Gotcher added 12 points for the Red Raiders (1-1), who will play Mississippi State in a consolation game on Friday.
Miami features a high-powered offense with depth. Seven players reached double digits in the scoring column on Friday night.
Tyler Lewis scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half for the Bulldogs (3-0), Butler shot just 36 percent, including 5 of 21 from 3-point range, but shook off a slow start to stay unbeaten and advance to the Tipoff’s championship game.
Utah’s trip to San Juan, starting with a game against Texas Tech on Thursday night, is part of a stretch of five games in 10 nights to open the season.
“We ended up on our backs a lot of times laying on the ground pointing fingers at each other telling each other to block out….”
Both teams played yesterday, so fatigue may be an issue in this one.
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MSU will face Missouri State in the seventh place of the game event Sunday.
