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Thursday, November 8
Salt Lake City, Utah
7:00 PM
University of Utah
75
vs
61
Maine
Photo by: Steve C. Wilson
Basketball Opens Season with 75-61 Win Over Maine
11/8/2018 10:26 PM | Men's Basketball
Barefield leads the team with 18 points and nine assists
SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Runnin' Utes opened its 2018-19 season with a 75-61 victory over Maine, Thursday night at the Huntsman Center.
Senior Sedrick Barefield led the way with 18 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line. Sophomore Donnie Tillman chipped in with 15 points, going 6-of-9 from the field and 2-of-4 from downtown. Senior Parker Van Dyke also managed to pour in a double-digit scoring effort, scoring 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, which included a 3-of-5 effort from the arc.
The Utes led by 17 at break, up 45-28 on the Black Bears, but Maine managed to shoot its way back to within single digits and found themselves down just 55-46 with less than 12 minutes to play in the second half. Utah would get the lead back to 13 following a 9-5 run, but a barrage of three-pointers from the opposing squad pulled Maine back to within nine, down 66-57 with 3:58 left on the clock.
Out of a timeout, junior Jayce Johnson put down a monster dunk to open a 7-0 run, which included a three-pointer from Van Dyke and a pair of free throws from Barefield. Maine would score four of the game's final six points, but Utah kept the Black Bears scoreless over the final 51 seconds to play.
Utah is back in action this coming Monday, Nov. 12, as the team will make its first road trip of the season to face Big Ten foe, Minnesota. Tip-off between the Utes and Golden Gophers is set for 8 p.m. CT at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minn.
GAME NOTES
• Utah moved to 8-0 all-time in season-openers under head coach Larry Krystkowiak. The Utes are now 85-26 overall in season-openers, which also includes a 77-13 mark when opening the season at home.
• With the win, Coach Krystkowiak moved to 139-97 as the head coach of the Utes. He is 181-117 in his coaching career overall.
• This marked the first-ever meeting between the Utes and Black Bears. Utah is now 1-0 all-time in the young series.
• Sedrick Barefield finished the game with a team-high eight assists. This marks the third time in his career he has posted eight assists in a game.
• In his first game as a Ute, senior Novak Topalovic scored nine points and pulled down a team-high nine rebounds. He was a perfect 3-of-3 from the field.
• Also making his Utah debut, freshman Timmy Allen scored six points, tallied six rebounds and dished out six assists.
• Utah out-rebounded the Black Bears 46-27 on the night, while outscoring the opposition, 13-3 in second-chance points.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Utah vs. Maine | November 8, 2018
Utah Head Coach Larry Krystkowiak
On starting strong…
"In transition in the first half we got out and pushed it pretty well. The main team was solid with their zone, they presented a lot of open threes for us and I thought maybe we overshot some of them. We scored 25 points in the first 8 minutes and then it kind of dried up. It was a good game plan on their part, I thought they kept us out of the paint pretty well. It's a good learning experience for us to face some zone early in the season. Sometimes you go a few games without facing it but we've got some work to do there. Defensively, they run a bunch of Princeton offense and I thought some of our guys got taken advantage of with some back cuts from time to time. We need to be better. We've got a long way to go with our team."
On shot selection…
"I just thought some shots were presented where we could skip the ball and take a three. I thought there were too many off the dribble and step back shots. I thought we could have earned more. For the most part we have to figure out how to get the ball into the post via the past, and the one element we have to work on is when gaps are available, we have to have ball handlers who aren't afraid to get into that seam, draw a couple guys in, and make a play for a teammate. That's a big part of zone offense is penetration via the bounce. You've got to guard stuff other than your own action and you've got to be guarded by teams other than your own defense. We spent a little time with it in practice, so hopefully we learned from that."
On Barefield's new role…
"I think he hit some deep threes to start with, had some nice pace, and presented some problems for defense. I saw a shift with the turnover, we had five turnovers in the first half and seven in the second. I thought some of those turnovers deflated us. We carried some negative energy and had a hard time guarding them, there were a lot of hands down. Guys were shooting threes with their hands down. I don't worry about our offense, I think we know what we're going to get out of Sed."
On Sedrick's adjustment from Shooting Guard…
"So far he's been well. We're gonna see a lot of different things, but he's got the ball in his hands. We've got to get a couple other guys some reps, but I don't think our program has ever necessarily been relying on one person to do it. We'd like to get the ball to Sed at the end of a shot clock, so he can be a ball in hand guard at that point. But I've been pleased with it so far."
Maine Head Coach – Richard Barron
On the team's performance tonight…
"I was extremely pleased with our toughness, in terms of how we continued to fight, even when we made some mistakes mentally, we moved onto the next play really well. I'm not sure exactly where we were at halftime, but we performed so much better in the second half. We didn't have a great start on both ends of the floor, we rushed some shots and turned the ball over a few times and gave up some three pointers. We did a pretty good job in the second half until the three-minute mark, we made some uncharacteristic mistakes that lead to some easy baskets. After a while, you could just feel our team settle in and develop some confidence in what we were running on both ends of the floor. Utah's size was a huge advantage for them, but I thought our guys handled it pretty well. I thought we handled the ball very well, we only had three turnovers in the second half, Utah ended up with more turnovers than we did, so that was really positive. We were good from the free throw line and we were really good from the three-point line in the second half."
On how the defense and offense was ran during the game…
"There were a few times when we got out of it, and there were a few times when we were rushed because of the pressure. There were a couple possessions where we could have pulled it back out and ran something, and we kind of forced the action. In a game against a team like this, you've got to take advantage of every possession. This will be a great building block for us, there is a lot that we can improve on, but we showed so much improvement from the Denver game. We've got a hundred something days until March, with those make it or break it games, so if we can continue to improve, then I am excited for what our future holds as a team."
Senior Sedrick Barefield led the way with 18 points on 5-of-13 shooting from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line. Sophomore Donnie Tillman chipped in with 15 points, going 6-of-9 from the field and 2-of-4 from downtown. Senior Parker Van Dyke also managed to pour in a double-digit scoring effort, scoring 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, which included a 3-of-5 effort from the arc.
The Utes led by 17 at break, up 45-28 on the Black Bears, but Maine managed to shoot its way back to within single digits and found themselves down just 55-46 with less than 12 minutes to play in the second half. Utah would get the lead back to 13 following a 9-5 run, but a barrage of three-pointers from the opposing squad pulled Maine back to within nine, down 66-57 with 3:58 left on the clock.
Out of a timeout, junior Jayce Johnson put down a monster dunk to open a 7-0 run, which included a three-pointer from Van Dyke and a pair of free throws from Barefield. Maine would score four of the game's final six points, but Utah kept the Black Bears scoreless over the final 51 seconds to play.
Utah is back in action this coming Monday, Nov. 12, as the team will make its first road trip of the season to face Big Ten foe, Minnesota. Tip-off between the Utes and Golden Gophers is set for 8 p.m. CT at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minn.
GAME NOTES
• Utah moved to 8-0 all-time in season-openers under head coach Larry Krystkowiak. The Utes are now 85-26 overall in season-openers, which also includes a 77-13 mark when opening the season at home.
• With the win, Coach Krystkowiak moved to 139-97 as the head coach of the Utes. He is 181-117 in his coaching career overall.
• This marked the first-ever meeting between the Utes and Black Bears. Utah is now 1-0 all-time in the young series.
• Sedrick Barefield finished the game with a team-high eight assists. This marks the third time in his career he has posted eight assists in a game.
• In his first game as a Ute, senior Novak Topalovic scored nine points and pulled down a team-high nine rebounds. He was a perfect 3-of-3 from the field.
• Also making his Utah debut, freshman Timmy Allen scored six points, tallied six rebounds and dished out six assists.
• Utah out-rebounded the Black Bears 46-27 on the night, while outscoring the opposition, 13-3 in second-chance points.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Utah vs. Maine | November 8, 2018
Utah Head Coach Larry Krystkowiak
On starting strong…
"In transition in the first half we got out and pushed it pretty well. The main team was solid with their zone, they presented a lot of open threes for us and I thought maybe we overshot some of them. We scored 25 points in the first 8 minutes and then it kind of dried up. It was a good game plan on their part, I thought they kept us out of the paint pretty well. It's a good learning experience for us to face some zone early in the season. Sometimes you go a few games without facing it but we've got some work to do there. Defensively, they run a bunch of Princeton offense and I thought some of our guys got taken advantage of with some back cuts from time to time. We need to be better. We've got a long way to go with our team."
On shot selection…
"I just thought some shots were presented where we could skip the ball and take a three. I thought there were too many off the dribble and step back shots. I thought we could have earned more. For the most part we have to figure out how to get the ball into the post via the past, and the one element we have to work on is when gaps are available, we have to have ball handlers who aren't afraid to get into that seam, draw a couple guys in, and make a play for a teammate. That's a big part of zone offense is penetration via the bounce. You've got to guard stuff other than your own action and you've got to be guarded by teams other than your own defense. We spent a little time with it in practice, so hopefully we learned from that."
On Barefield's new role…
"I think he hit some deep threes to start with, had some nice pace, and presented some problems for defense. I saw a shift with the turnover, we had five turnovers in the first half and seven in the second. I thought some of those turnovers deflated us. We carried some negative energy and had a hard time guarding them, there were a lot of hands down. Guys were shooting threes with their hands down. I don't worry about our offense, I think we know what we're going to get out of Sed."
On Sedrick's adjustment from Shooting Guard…
"So far he's been well. We're gonna see a lot of different things, but he's got the ball in his hands. We've got to get a couple other guys some reps, but I don't think our program has ever necessarily been relying on one person to do it. We'd like to get the ball to Sed at the end of a shot clock, so he can be a ball in hand guard at that point. But I've been pleased with it so far."
Maine Head Coach – Richard Barron
On the team's performance tonight…
"I was extremely pleased with our toughness, in terms of how we continued to fight, even when we made some mistakes mentally, we moved onto the next play really well. I'm not sure exactly where we were at halftime, but we performed so much better in the second half. We didn't have a great start on both ends of the floor, we rushed some shots and turned the ball over a few times and gave up some three pointers. We did a pretty good job in the second half until the three-minute mark, we made some uncharacteristic mistakes that lead to some easy baskets. After a while, you could just feel our team settle in and develop some confidence in what we were running on both ends of the floor. Utah's size was a huge advantage for them, but I thought our guys handled it pretty well. I thought we handled the ball very well, we only had three turnovers in the second half, Utah ended up with more turnovers than we did, so that was really positive. We were good from the free throw line and we were really good from the three-point line in the second half."
On how the defense and offense was ran during the game…
"There were a few times when we got out of it, and there were a few times when we were rushed because of the pressure. There were a couple possessions where we could have pulled it back out and ran something, and we kind of forced the action. In a game against a team like this, you've got to take advantage of every possession. This will be a great building block for us, there is a lot that we can improve on, but we showed so much improvement from the Denver game. We've got a hundred something days until March, with those make it or break it games, so if we can continue to improve, then I am excited for what our future holds as a team."
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballCrimson Corner with Bill Riley - Eric Weddle
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