MARCH MADNESS: Utah Utes vs UCS Trojans. A Pac-12 Tourney Preview

When the dust settled on Saturday and I saw who my beloved Utah Utes Basketball squad had drawn in the first round, my heart sank.  The USC Trojans are just a terrible matchup for the Utes and it all started with Dewayne Dedmon, who simply destroyed Utah with 13 points 13 boards and five blocks.

But then on Sunday, news awoke that USC players had been involved in a late night brawl in lovely downtown Spokane, WA.  The brawl, it seems, begane the New Wave then on to the Marquee Lounge, a bar that has a team of hot girls committed to getting you the bar patron to drink more Jagermeister, and then on to the Satellite Diner at some point early Sunday morning.  Now I’ve spent some time in Spokane and if you find yourself at the Satellite at 2AM on a Sunday, well chances are you’re about to be in a fight.

And out of the ashes of that bar fight arose something Utah basketball fans have known far too little of, the phoenix of hope.

Suddenly, Utah, who is on their first two game win streak ever in Pac-12 hoops, had hopes of advancing to lose to Cal.  Ok not exactly a storybook ending, but we’re Utah basketball and we’ll take what we can get.

So what is going to happen.

Last time around USC had five players in double figures.  According to our friends at Reign of Troy,  Aaron Fuller will get many of Dedmon’s minutes.  In the first matchup, Fuller did not score in 10 minutes of action.  One would assume 7-2 Egyptian Center Omar Oraby will play more minutes as well.  Oraby had 8 points and 4 boards as well.

As for Utah, expect you’ll keep seeing what you’ve been getting.  Solid effort from Washburn, the magical ability of Dubois to hit a ton of shots as long as they aren’t in the last five minutes of a game, and good defense from Cedric Martin, who just might have  deserved some kind of look for Pac-12 all defensive team.

I don’t know if Utah is going to win.  But facing a team in turmoil who lost the guy that really killed you last time around, they aren’t going to get a much better shot in March.