Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Gameday: Utah at Oregon State

One of my finest moments as Utah's head coach came during the 1966 NCAA Tournament. Most college basketball fans remember Texas-Western's magical run for the championship that year; but Ute fans best remember the play of Jerry Chambers -- who was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Before Texas-Western got the best of us in the Final Four, Chambers led us to a really great win against Oregon State at the Western Regional in Pauley Pavilion.

I was worried about the Oregon State game. They excelled in ball control; they kept a real slow pace and didn't make mistakes. And they had a couple sharp-shooters named Loy Petersen and Rick Whelan. So the plan was to get a jump on them and make them play catch-up. Thanks to Chambers, Merv Jackson and Rich Tate, we were able to do just that. We took a 17-point lead into halftime and cruised the rest of the way en route to a 70-64 win. We controlled the tempo and Chambers went off for 33 points that night. Oregon State simply could not keep up with us on either end of the floor.

The win established us as the best in the west. From there we were off to College Park, Maryland to face Don Haskins and the Texas Miners. And the rest is history.

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• Don't miss pachoops.com's 600 Words on Why Utah Might Be Good.

• Coach Krysto is a fan of Joe Burton, and Challe Barton is expected to get some more minutes to take the focus off Ahmad Starks.

"Desperate" may not be the right word, but both the Utes and Beavers could really use a win tonight.

• And as always, there's a lot of good info on the Tribune's blog.

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