After an evening in Logan, UT, it was back to Salt Lake City
for a visit to the Jon M. Huntsman Center at the University of Utah for Arena
#163. On this evening, the Utes were
taking on the suddenly red-hot UCLA Bruins in a Pac-12 Conference matchup. Similar to the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, the
Huntsman Center was also celebrating its 50th anniversary this
season and looked nearly identical in layout to the Smith Spectrum with the
exception of having its concourse outside of the seating bowl and having a 15
or so row upper deck as well. Now I’m
not a big Utah fan, but I was extra excited about catching a game here because
of the NCAA history the Huntsman Center holds.
It was the site of the famous 1979 NCAA title game between Magic Johnson’s
Michigan State team and the Indiana State Sycamores of Larry Bird. It was also the site of the epic round of 32,
double-overtime NCAA game between Arizona and Gonzaga back in 2003.
Getting to the Huntsman Center from downtown SLC was super
easy as the UTA Trax light rail has a stop basically right in front of the
building. Definitely made it easier than
having to drive out to the arena and find parking on campus. The interior of the building was certainly
nothing to write home about as the concourse was pretty basic and also pretty
narrow. I would imagine when the house
is packed, the concourses become pretty difficult to get through freely. I did like how there were display cases
throughout the concourse of trophies and celebrations of the Utes’ various
other sports including their national championship pedigree in more obscure
sports like gymnastics and alpine skiing.
As for the basketball side of things, the Utes have had a
pretty inconsistent season having some big wins, including a win over Kentucky,
as well as some pretty terrible losses.
UCLA on the other hand started the season pretty poorly in their first
season under new head coach Mick Cronin, but have really turned things around
in the last month. As such, I figured
this might be a pretty competitive game with a pretty decent crowd. Turns out I was wrong on both fronts. The crowd was maybe half full at best, though
an 8:30 pm local tip time for TV on a Thursday night certainly didn’t help. The on-court action was also pretty
uncompetitive as the Bruins more-or-less dominated the Utes from tip to finish. UCLA was certainly the more talented team and
it was interesting to see how some of their star recruits were finally playing
up to their potential compared to earlier in the season when UCLA was dropping
games to lower-tier teams like Hofstra and Cal State Fullerton. The first half was pretty ugly both ways, but
especially on the Utah end, scoring only 21 points at the half to trail by
12. The second half brought more offense
for the Utes, but also brought more offense for the Bruins too who eventually
took home a 69-58 road win.
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| Main entrance to the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, UT |
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| Inside the arena pregame |
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| Bringing the heat for player introductions |
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| Opening tip between the Utes and Bruins |
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| UCLA playing some tough interior defense against the Utes |
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