Second Round Recap – Austin Region
For one game at least, Andrew Bogut wasn’t carrying the Utah Utes on his back. Luckily for Utah, there were plenty of other players to carry the shooting load.
Justin Hawkins scored a game-high 20 points and was aided by 17 from Marc Jackson and 16 from Bryant Markson, as Bogut was relied on in other areas: namely, rebounds (11) and assists (seven, a career-high). The Sooners, meanwhile, hit their first shot of the game and then things went downhill from there.
With the game tied at two, the Utes went on a 12-0 run over the next 4:46 to take a commanding lead early on, and the Sooners were unable to get closer than four points for the remainder of the contest. The deficit in large part was attributed to Oklahoma’s terrible first-half shooting, as the team made just 8-of-31 shots (26 percent).
In the opening half, the Utes showed that they could dominate the opposition without a big offensive performance from Bogut. At the break, the Utah big man had scored only two of his season-low 10 points, although his defensive presence neutralized Oklahoma big men Kevin Bookout and Johnnie Gilbert.
The second half was no different for both teams, as Utah continued to pour in the points – shooting a lights-out 77 percent (13-of-17) in the second stanza – while Oklahoma still struggled to find the basket. As a result, the Sooners couldn’t get any closer than seven points in the second half.
Taj Gray and Terrell Everett combined to score 35 points for Oklahoma – but on 35 attempts. The personification of the Sooner struggles on the offensive end was Drew Lavender, who led the team with 19 points in the first round win over Niagara but who hit only 1-of-6 shots for three points on Saturday afternoon.
For the game, Utah shot 60 percent from the field, while Oklahoma managed to hit only 32 percent of its shots – including only 2-of-19 (11 percent) from beyond the arc. The Sooners also took 29 more shots than the Utes over the course of the game, but all those extra opportunities could not spell more points for the aimless Sooners.
