Men's basketball free falling

In Boise, Idaho for the season opener Utah Valley played to the bitter end before losing to Boise State in overtime 72-71. In the rematch Utah Valley lost control and after leading at halftime and fell 87-77.
It was Utah Valley's (3-7) fifth loss in a row and the team has as many losses as last year's team had all season.
Again Ryan Toolson led the way for the Wolverines with 22 points and Jordan Brady had a career high 20 to go with eight rebounds but the Wolverines were burned by turnovers and second-half 3-point shooting by the Broncos.
Reggie Larry led Boise State with 18 points and had a couple nice dunks in the second half. A half where Boise State shot 5-for-7 from behind the arc and 60 percent from the field.
Although Toolson had 22 points it came on just 5-for-16 shooting and 2-for-10 from 3-point range.
Teams know Toolson is a scorer and they buckle down on him defensively. Last David Heck and Matt Peterson could take some pressure off and score as well but this year Toolson is the major threat offensively for the Wolverines by far and although he is still getting his points it is coming on a lot more shots. He also played every minute of the game.
Toolson and Brady had little help offensively as Richard Troyer was 3-for-9 and 1-for-6 from 3-point range. Josh Olsen shot 1-for-8 and 0-for-3 from the 3-point line.
And as poor of an offensive game as several players had, the Wolverines were still in it if they would have held possesion and played a bit tighter defense. The Broncos shot 50 percent for the game to Utah Valley's 41 percent.

Other notes
Center Joe Walker was another Wolverine haveing a nice game shooting 4-for-5 from the field before exiting because of a hand injury. Walker came up holding his hand after a Wolverine foul. He stayed in the game for a few minutes but after he threw down a two-handed dunk midway through the second half he called for a sub and never came back in. Boise pulled away for good in what was a close ball game and led by six to 10 points until the end.

New floor, no good?
Utah Valley is 0-2 on the new floor it shares with the Flash. While there was many complaints about the old floor and all the dead spots at least the team was winning. Utah State was the team's only loss at home last year. This already two now.
The women's team will try its hand for the first time on the new floor on Saturday. Maybe they can do better after two straight losses.

Utah Valley recruit lights up No. 1 team

Ben Aird was on BYU and Utah's recruiting radar not too long ago but for some reason dropped off and landed smack dab in the middle of Utah Valley's.
Looks like coach Dick Hunsaker found himself a diamond with the way Aird played against top-ranked Brighton this week.
The 6-foot-10 center, who plays for Bountiful, dropped in 28 points and pulled down 10 rebounds as well as getting two blocks in the Braves 75-68 win Tuesday night.
Aird scored 17 points and grabbed nine rebounds in Bountiful's season opener against Syracuse.
He is being touted as, and wants to be, the best big-man in the state. The high school basketball season is young but Aird seems like a great get for the Wolverines.
Utah Valley loses two big men after this season, Joe Walker and Jordan Brady.

How about the WAC?

The athletic department is looking to get into a conference so what does a Western Athletic Conference task force mean to Utah Valley?


There's an article in the Star Bulletin from Hawaii, here, about the WAC task force looking at basketball in the nine-team conference.

The WAC may want to expand by adding another team to make travel partners for Thursday and Saturday games. Could UVSC be a possibilty? Hawaii athletic director and member of the task force Herman Frazier was in Salt Lake City for a conference earlier this month.
The WAC would be a great conference for Utah Valley but it still seems like a long shot at this point but anything is possible the way Utah Valley's athletics are continuing to improve un der Division I status.

If Utah Valley gets into a conference without a football team the will they ever have football?
Pressure from the conference might encourage it but it could go the other way if the conference just wants to add a school without football and basketball as its main sport. Football still costs a fortune Utah Valley doesn't have.

There's still plenty of changes to endure before the athletic department is where it wants to be at the D-I level.