After taking a short tour through Texas as part of their conference schedule, the Utah Tech University men’s basketball team returned to St. George Feb. 6 in hopes of snapping a five-game losing streak.
The team had taken losses at both Tarleton State University and the University of Texas at Arlington before squaring up against the Abilene Christian University Wildcats in the Burns Arena.
Respectively, both teams sat at the seventh and eighth spots in the nine-team Western Athletic Conference. ACU was turning away from a two-game losing streak and had only won a single conference game against Tarleton State.
The battle at the bottom of the leaderboard began with the Trailblazers turning the ball over twice in their first two possessions. The Wildcats came out swinging with aggressive defense and an impressive nine-for-nine shooting performance that included five 3-pointers.
Utah Tech came out of the first timeout with some aggressive defense of their own and managed to hold on and stay under a double-digit deficit until halftime, where they were down 31-44.
The halftime performances brought a bit of light and excitement to the crowd. The cheer and drill teams from Crimson Cliffs High School were invited to the game and performed routines. The Blaze dance team performed as well, and Utah Tech’s cheer team unveiled their Nationals routine for the very first time.
However, the excitement was short-lived as play resumed. ACU caught fire and ended the game having shot an impressive 51% from the floor and 46% from three as a team. Burdened by 19 total turnovers, the Trailblazers never came within single digits and fell to a final score of 72-86.
Beon Riley, a senior business major from Chula Vista, California, led Utah Tech’s scorers with 17 points and tallied 12 rebounds alongside it. Samuel “Tobi” Ariyibi, a redshirt junior communication studies major from Lagos, Nigeria, was a spark off the bench and contributed nine points, three assists and three blocks.
“Right now, everyone’s been the most mentally tired,” Ariyibi said. “Everyone is trying to figure out what they can do personally… and how they can be effective for [the] team.”
Justin Bieker, a senior individualized studies major from Portland, Oregon, responded when asked about the mid-season fatigue.
He said: “I think we just got to dig deeper and want it more. Obviously, tonight we didn’t do that, so we got to go back and soul search and figure out how to finish off this season.”
There are still eight games remaining for the Trailblazers and the seeding for the WAC tournament in Las Vegas is still up in the air. There’s still a chance to get out of the woods and end the season on a high note.
Ariyibi said that after tough losses like this, he goes home to watch the game film and leans on his teammates and family to figure out how he can be better for the next game.
Similarly, Riley said that he leans on his faith in God during tough times and believes that the team’s focus has been on unity.
“As much as we don’t really show it, at times I feel like this is a tight group and at some point, we’re gonna start turning it around and playing some better basketball,” Riley said. “It starts with all of us.”
Bieker expressed a similar sentiment.
“It’s times like this you can’t have people or anyone give up on our team,” he said. “We only have so much time left together.”
The team is headed to Southern Utah University Feb. 13 at 6:30 p.m. The rest of the schedule can be found here.