Home Sweet Home as Utah Valley Gets Back in the Win Column
Wolverines win first home game in a month, and they do it in a way that hasn't been done in over a month.
For the past month, the Utah Valley men’s basketball team has been on the road.
It has been 32 days since basketball has been played inside the UCCU Center.
32!
There was a trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota followed by a trip to Murray, Kentucky.
Instead of heading back to Orem after a win over Murray State, the Wolverines made the quick, short trip to Birmingham, Alabama for the Sanford Thanksgiving Invitational.
Spending the Thanksgiving holiday in Alabama probably wasn’t what the Wolverines wanted to do.
It is even more true considering the Wolverines were coming off a wild 84-76 loss to host Samford…a game in which Utah Valley led nearly 35 minutes.
And the Wolverines had to eat their Thanksgiving dinner a few hours after getting beat up by North Dakota State to finish the trip to the multi-team event.
Yes, it has been a long 32 days.
Utah Valley head coach Todd Phillips had perhaps the best statement in the postgame press conference.
“Hey, it’s nice to be home. It’s nice to be home.”
It sure is.
Utah Valley found its offensive rhythm on Wednesday night in an 80-57 win over North Dakota.
For the second time in 2024-25, the Wolverines hit double-digit 3-pointers. 12 to be exact.
Yes, Utah Valley hit 12 3-pointer. A huge stat considering the Wolverines hadn’t made more than five 3-pointers in a game away from the UCCU Center.
The only other time Utah Valley hit double-digit 3-pointers in a game was on Nov. 9 in an 89-60 blowout win over UTEP when the Wolverines went 10-19 from the perimeter.
“That makes life a lot easier, doesn’t it?”, Utah Valley head coach Todd Phillips said. “I think part of it is taking the right ones in the flow of the game … it was great to see the ball go in for guys today.”
Things didn’t get off to a rip-roaring start on Wednesday night at the UCCU Center.
Tired legs perhaps. Maybe a little emotion considering it was the first home game in 32 days. Or perhaps it was simply an opponent who knew they had won the first leg of the home-and-home series believing they could sweep the set.
Whatever it was, it took Utah Valley about eight minutes and a quick timeout to figure things out.
The Fighting Hawks reeled off an 11-0 run courtesy of back-to-back 3-pointers from Eli King and Deng Mayar to take an 18-10 lead.
Todd Phillips took what might have been the best timeout of the season with 12:26 left in the first half.
“I probably swore at them a little bit,” Phillips said about the timeout. “I don’t swear very much so that probably shocks them a little bit when I swear and yell at them … but they responded.”
Responded might be an understatement.
Out of the timeout, Utah Valley exploded.
Trevan Leonhardt hit a pair of 3-pointers, Jackson Holcombe had a layup., Noah Taitz had five points, and Carter Welling capped off a 17-1 run with a two-handed dunk to give Utah Valley the lead for good over the next five minutes.
If that run wasn’t enough, Utah Valley decided that one more run was needed out of the halftime locker room.
A 20-0 run in the blink of an eye made what was a close game at halftime (35-31) and blowout snoozefest in the second half.
“That’s what halftime is for, making adjustments,” Utah Valley guard Trevan Leonhardt said. “We talked about defense a lot and we started off fast. We came out aggressive and played good defense, which is big for us.”
How quick was the run? Four minutes and two seconds.
Dunk, layup, hammer dunk, and 3-pointer in the blink of an eye.
With 15:58 to play, Utah Valley all of a sudden led 55-31.
From there, the Wolverines were simply on cruise control. North Dakota got within 14 but that was as close as the Fighting Hawks got after halftime.
For a team with just four non-conference home games, it felt much better to get a win, sleep in their own beds, and shoot the ball a little better. Although, Todd Phillips would like his point guard to shoot the ball a little more.
“Trev, I yell at him every day to shoot more,” Phillips said. “Shoot more, shoot more, shoot more because he’s one of our top 3-point shooters. He really got us going with those three big ones in the first half.”
Utah Valley can’t focus too much on the first home game in 32 days. The Wolverines go back on the road for three straight games beginning on Saturday at Jacksonville State in the second leg of the WAC/Conference USA Challenge.
The following week, Utah Valley heads up I-15 to take on rival Weber State along with Big Sky foe Idaho State before returning home to end the non-conference slate against Bethesda.
The good news for Utah Valley fans… the Wolverines get to open WAC play with three straight home games. Utah Valley hosts ACU, GCU and CBU to open league play.
That is a good thing considering how well the Wolverines shoot the basketball on their home floor.
Good to be home, indeed.