Episode 18 – Bowling for Christmas was good for Utah and BYU, the Jazz are still winning

Listen Here!

All right, this may be a bit brief because I will hopefully be hearing from my dentist any moment now. I’ve got a bad-and-getting-worse toothache that is not responding well to pain killers, so I am trying to get my appointment moved up a day. With any luck, I will be called up to “the show” (I would assume dentists call their fine work by some cool nickname, like almost all professions) and have to leave for some pain relief.

However, until that sweet moment comes (and I’m not crazy about going to the dentist, but knowing how good it will feel once the whole thing is over with is nice in anticipation) I will try to provide some information about the prior week in sports. First, the Brigham Young University Cougars took their win streak, the conference title, and the rejuvenation of a once-proud football program, and bet it all on the Las Vegas Bowl. The Oregon Ducks were the middle-tier representative of the Pac-10 conference, and they seemed confident in a win. There were plenty of storylines to add intrigue: Gary Crowton playing a program he once ran, a few Oregon players bumping chests with a few BYU players during some pre-game festivities, and the Oregon coach seeming to discredit BYU when he had an opportunity to say something nice.

With all of that in mind, I believe it’s significant that BYU came out on top, in a big way. The final score was BYU 38, Oregon 8, and the game was every bit as lopsided as the score indicates. To be fair, Oregon looked terrible and certainly should have been able to conjure up something better than what they showed. But, also to be fair, BYU could have let their attention slip and kept the Ducks around. Instead, the Cougars played a strong game and whipped the trash out of a Pac-10 school.

BYU’s offense didn’t look great in the first quarter, but after shaking off some layoff doldrums, they came alive in the second quarter and never looked back. John Beck played well, as did Johnny Harline, who was second on our “Top Three Utah Stars of the Week” for this week. The offense provided some decent numbers once the receivers stopped dropping passes. Oregon managed to put together one good scoring drive in the second half to keep from being shutout, but the game was never in doubt once the Cougars got things going.

The defense for BYU was exceptional, and as Bronco Mendenhall pointed out, probably should have been more acknowledged in the time leading up to the game. Cameron Jensen and David Nixon set the tone in the first quarter, and the secondary stepped up a notch. It was a well-called defense that basically won the game for BYU. The offense provided their signature firepower, but the D did all the dirty work.

Meanwhile, because I am still waiting for the dentist to call, the University of Utah looked to improve on their impressive bowls won streak in the Armed Forces Bowl. They went to task against a tough Tulsa Golden Hurricane team that was ranked high nationally in both offensive production and defensive stoutness, and came out with a win, Utah 25, Tulsa 13. In a somewhat similar fashion to the BYU/Oregon game, there wasn’t much scoring from either side in the first half, and Utah led at the break 9-7. That baseball-esque score was due to the prominent right leg of Louie Sakoda, who kicked three solid field goals in the half.

Utah scored on the first possession of the second half and basically went on from there to win. Tulsa played hard until the final possession, and it was close in the middle of the fourth quarter after Brett Ratliff threw an interception and Tulsa scored a touchdown on the ensuing possession. However, with the score 19-13 in Utah’s favor, Eric Weddle came into the game for Ratliff and ran the ball on seven of eight plays until he scrambled in untouched for the final touchdown of the game. It was appropriate, then, when the All-American Weddle intercepted Tulsa’s final pass of the game and simply put his knee down to put the final touch on a great win.

Utah should be improved next year, in spite of losing their offensive leader in Ratliff and defensive leader in Weddle. They showed in a few games this year they can play hard enough to compete with anyone on their schedule (BYU was probably the best team they played all year, after all). If they can solve some of the very significant inconsistency issues and establish a decent running game, they might just contend for the conference championship again. But, we have another nine or ten months before we really have to worry about that again.

Still waiting to get the call… I have an appointment tomorrow, but the discomfort is becoming pain fast enough for me to try and sneak in today. No complaints, though. My dentist and the staff there are superb, and I am confident they are doing whatever they can to squeeze me in.

I might as well discuss the Jazz for a moment. Perhaps I can be more intelligent in my comments than I was on the podcast this morning, when the combination of sore tooth and pain killers had me scrambled. Seriously, you should check it out. It was hilarious.

Utah went 3-1 since our last show, which improved their record to 21-8. They did have a disappointing road trip, however, when they lost to New York (covered in the previous podcast) and Charlotte. They should have probably lost to Atlanta, as well, but they erased a 21 point deficit in the first six minutes of the fourth quarter and outscored Atlanta 40-13 en route to a victory. The final record for the entire road trip was 3-2, which is still a winning record, but a truly elite NBA team should have won at least one more of those games.

But, the Jazz continue to play pretty decent basketball, all things considered. Both Zach and I agree that Deron Williams is starting to come into his own, and is establishing himself as an elite player. Carlos Boozer would be getting more MVP run in a bigger market (even though he is getting it even here) and Mehmet Okur is hitting some legendary three pointers. The “Money Ball” (as play-by-play guy Craig Bolerjack insists on calling it) from Memo has been a deadly weapon in the past few weeks, as it provides a big shot in the arm for the Jazz and a dagger to the opposing players. I am incredibly impressed with Okur’s ability to light things up during the final minutes of the fourth quarter.

I would also like to mention Andrei Kirilenko, as he has had something of a rough week. He was coming on strong for a few outings, but in the last two contests he saw his blocked shot streak come to an end at 28 games, and last night against the Clippers he was knocked silly by Corey Magettee’s elbow (not a dirty play or anything, just one of those things that happens). He was declared to have a minor concussion last night, and would be evaluated further this morning. No word yet whether he will be available for Thursday’s big game in San Antonio, but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Now that I mention it, Matt Harpring was also absent from last night’s game with the stomach flu. Wow, between AK (concussion), Harpring (stomach flu) and me (evil tooth), it could be a rough day or two for Utah sports. Although this blog went all right for me, but when I put the uniform (my clothes) on there are no excuses.

The Top Three Stars in Utah (for the previous week):

3. Louie Sakoda

2. Johnny Harline

1. Mehmet Okur

Honorable mentions to John Beck, Eric Weddle, and Deron Williams. (Incidentally, Hot Rod Hundley has taken to calling him Deron “Slick” Williams on the radio call. I am not a big fan, and neither is Zach)

Thanks for listening, and please visit our sponsor at ShieldZone.com!

comments@utahsportscast.com

zach@utahsportscast.com

nate@utahsportscast.com

posted by Nate and Zach @ 9:06 AM