A year ago, Utah hosted Wichita State in early December. After a 2013-14 season in which the Utes had made great strides but gone 3-8 in two possession games, it was a mammoth game for a program with March aspirations. It took 45 minutes to decide a winner, but a Delon Wright game-winner with 14 seconds left gave the program a foundational win against a proven opponent. They showed that they could not only hang with a top-10 team, but also come away with a win. Early this season, the big story for Larry Krystkowiak is that life after all-Pac-12 performer Wright is hard. Prior to Saturday, they had played two games against quality competition this year and were blown out in both. So when the team traveled to Madison Square Garden to play Duke on Saturday, the opportunity felt similar to that offered by the Shockers last season. These Utes had plenty to prove.
First, let’s not bury the lede. The best player on the floor was Utah sophomore center Jakob Poeltl. He had 19 points on 11 field goal attempts, 12 rebounds, three blocks and a significant unquantifiable impact on the game in his 28 minutes before he fouled out. His final foul was legitimate. But the others? Yikes. Talking about officiating is boring, so we’ll skip over most of that and just show you Poeltl’s first four fouls. You judge if he got a fair whistle.
Poeltl’s a known quantity at this point, but what kept the Utes in this game were two breakout performances from Kyle Kuzma and Lorenzo Bonam. Kuzma went head-to-head with future lottery pick Brandon Ingram and came out on top more often than not. He rebounded, converted twisting layup and dunk attempts at the rim, and guarded effectively from both post and perimeter. In one stretch that spanned the end of the first half and start of the second, he scored 13 consecutive points for the Utes. Given that he had averaged one point, three rebounds and two turnovers in Utah’s games against Miami and Wichita State, Kuzma’s performance was a new ingredient that significantly aided the Utes’ upset hopes.
Then there was the JuCo transfer Bonam, who spent a lot of time running the point for the Utes on Saturday. By the end of the day, Bonam had chipped in with 12 points, nine assists and four eye-opening blocks. For large stretches of the first 40 minutes, the athletic Bonam played with perfect poise and calm. He’s also the one guard on the roster that can get to the rim on his own on a regular basis. There were some accompanying mistakes, but they were the type of brain farts that, while potentially costly, aren’t uncommon for a guy getting his first serious run at the point in a big-time D-I game. There was the backcourt ten-second call he received for casually walking the ball up court, as well as a poor challenge on a Duke three-point shooter (Luke Kennard) with a six-point lead and six seconds left, which turned into a momentum-shifting four-point play for the Blue Devils. Still, those types of plays will serve as teachable moments that could prove beneficial down the road, particularly after coming in victory.
Here’s the thing: Bonam needs to be this team’s point guard. Brandon Taylor is a senior, and yes, he should have a significant role on this team going forward. But he makes a lot of bad decisions at the point. At 5’10”, Taylor struggles to feed the post, a significant drawback on a team that revolves around post touches. He’s also incapable of dribbling his way into clean looks. Taylor’s history shows that he’s a knock-down three-point shooter when he gets good looks, but the only way for him to get those clean looks is off penetrate and kick opportunities from teammates — looks he isn’t going to get when dominating the ball. There are also some defensive limitations for the senior guard, which is a problem late in games when you don’t want to be pulling your floor general on defensive possessions and having him out of the game on the other end. For the Utes to reach their potential (which is at least NCAA second-weekend, if not better), Taylor needs to have a big role on this team. But that role shouldn’t be as the team’s primary point guard.
No matter what lesson is learned from Saturday, these are all great things to learn in a mid-December game against a quality opponent. Sure, Duke was short-handed. But that’s a good team that got a great whistle and is playing in a very familiar environment. The Utes stubbed their toes here and there and may have made the game more difficult than it needed to be, but they came away with a big win. Much like the Wichita State win last year, this is the type of game that can help construct a team’s identity. There are just two easy buy-games remaining on the non-conference schedule before Utah jumps right into the New Year with trips to Stanford, California and Colorado to open Pac-12 play. Saturday’s win over Duke will provide the Utes much-needed confidence as they head into the grind of another conference season.