My name is Kyle Sennikoff and I hope you enjoyed tonight's coverage! See you soon!
That's it! The Oregon Ducks are your PAC-12 Regular Season and Tournament Champions! They defeated the Utah Utes tonight by a final score of 88-57. Oregon were dominate from start to finish and worthy champions.
2nd Half, 2:32 Small adds two more to his point tally with a nice finish at the rim (52-85).
2nd Half, 3:42 The depth is being shown now as Sorkin hits a nice three pointer (49-83).
2nd Half, 4:35 Small gets his first points of the game and gives Oregon 80 (47-80).
2nd Half, 5:36 Tucker answers down the other end for Utah (47-76).
2nd Half, 5:45 Brooks continues the onslaught with a three (44-76).
2nd Half, 6:22 He can only make one, but Bell cleans up the offensive rebound and scores (41-73).
2nd Half, 6:22 Dorsey is still in the game and heads to the line for two (41-70).
2nd Half, 7:39 Then Loveridge drains his second three pointer of the night (41-70).
2nd Half, 8:23 Tucker makes a three for Utah (38-68).
2nd Half, 9:13 Dorsey hits yet another three point shot and then gets a well deserved rest (35-68).
2nd Half, 11:14 The two schools exchange a pair of three's (33-63).
2nd Half, 11:36 Bell with a big block (30-60).
Unless there is a major let down from the Ducks, they are well on their way to the title (30-60).
Utah looks like they are already out of gas and completely over match. It's insane (30-60).
2nd Half, 13:13 But Dorsey answers right back with a two of his own (30-57).
2nd Half, 13:33 Loveridge finally gets on the boad with a deep three (30-55).
2nd Half, 14:23 Boucher cleans up Cook's miss and it's a 27 point advantage (27-54).
2nd Half, 15:04 Oregon continues to struggle at the line as Boucher can only make one of two (27-52).
Oregon is continuing right where they left off, getting easy shots away and playing swarming defense. As a result, Utah have been unable to mount a comeback at all (27-51).
2nd Half, 15:48 Boucher makes his third three pointer to give his side 51 points already (27-51).
2nd Half, 16:32 Dorsey drives to the hoop and finishes with a reverse lay in, drawing a foul to boot (27-47).
2nd Half, 17:19 Lorenzo Bonam makes both of his free throws to trim lead to 17 (27-44).
2nd Half, 18:13 Dorsey continues to stay hot by making his second shot of the half and pushing his school's lead to 21 (23-44).
2nd Half,19:35 Elgin Cook begins the second half by making a jumper from just inside the three point line (23-40).
2nd Half, 20:00 We are back underway for the final 20 minutes! (23-38)
Is there a way back into this game for the Utes? Come back and find out!
Turnovers haunted Utah in the opening 20 minutes as they turned it over 13 times. Oregon capitalized on this, scoring half of their points off of them.
1st Half, 00:07 Bell was on the spot to tip in a rebound to extend his school's lead to 17 right before halftime (21-38).
1st Half, 00:32 Dorsey did a bunch of good work on the offensive end, forcing a turnover too. But he picked up his second foul after a missed layup (21-36).
1st Half, 1:16 Poeltl is able to complete the three point play (20-35).
1st Half, 1:40 Excellent move from Cook to lay it in (18-35).
1st Half, 2:42 Poeltl makes both free throws (18-31).
1st Half, 2:42 Cook fouls Poeltl hard as he went up for a high-percentage shot (16-31).
1st Half, 3:27 Dorsey cleaned up his own miss and the lead is now 15 (16-31).
1st Half, 3:40 Terrible pass by Poeltl and Oregon gets the ball back (16-29).
1st Half, 4:05 Elgin Cook continues a 16-3 run by converting an easy layup putting the Ducks up 13 as Utah calls a timeout (16-29).
1st Half, 4:48 Boucher drains another big three to push Oregon's lead to double digits (16-27).
1st Half, 5:50 Brandon Taylor ends Utah's drought by hitting a big three (16-24).
1st Half, 6:07 Dorsey's pull-up jump shot is good (13-24).
1st Half, 6:46 Then Bell steals a pass, reads the lane, and runs across the court, draws a foul, but cannot complete the three point play (13-22).
1st Half, 7:05 Beautiful finish from Bell at the rack (13-20).
1st Half, 7:25 Utah turns the ball over as we head to another media time out (13-18).
1st Half 8:12 Bell makes only one (13-16).
1st Half, 8:12 Little Helter Skelter at the moment with Bell heading to the line for two (13-15).
1st Half, 9:40 Big rejection by Bell on Poeltl (13-15).
1st Half, 10:23 Taylor makes 2/3 of his attempts. (13-13).
1st Half, 10:23 Off of the in bound play, Utah's Taylor draws a foul from behind the three point line (11-13).
1st Half, 10:53 Cook answers back and swishes home a three (11-13).
1st Half, 11:47 Poeltl makes both free throws and Utah leads for the first time (11-10).
1st Half, 11:47 The big Austrian will shoot free throws at the other side of the under 12 time out (9-10).
1st Half, 13:31 Great defensive pressure from Utah to stop Oregon from scoring on that possession (9-10).
1st Half, 14:09 Jakob Poeltl adds two more to his point total (9-10).
1st Half, 14:44 Lovely move to get to the rack from Dillon Brooks (7-10).
1st Half, 15:17 We are at the under-16 time out already. Neither side has really found their groove yet on offense, missing good looks on both ends. Nerves could be a factor (7-8).
1st Half, 16:08 Jakob Poeltl finally gets involved on offense throwing down a big dunk (7-8).
1st Half, 16:50 Brandon Taylor answers down the other end a three of his own (5-8).
1st Half, 17:30 Boucher is up to five points now with a three pointer (2-8).
1st Half, 18:12 Elgin Cook fires one in from deep to extend the Ducks lead to 5 (0-5).
1st Half, 19:05 Boucher gets the Ducks on the board first. (0-2)
1st Half, 20:00 And we are underway! (0-0)
Hope you've enjoyed an exciting day of college basketball so far! We are just about an hour away from tip off here in Vegas.
Come back later tonight when the proceedings begin! The battle between Oregon and Utah should be one for the ages. Hopefully it’s a hard-fought on too!
The biggest battle tonight will be along the front court between Jakob Poeltl and Elgin Cook. While the latter doesn’t play the five, he will still use his big body from time to time to pound his way down low. Will the Austrian be able to help stop him? And will Poeltl be able to be as dominate tonight as we he was last night? These questions will be on display for 40 minutes and it will be interesting to see them unfold throughout the night.
The last time these two schools met was back in Eugene, Oregon on January 15th of this year. There, Dillon Brooks stole the show. He propelled Oregon to a 77-59 victory and led both sides with 22 points. He was absolutely clinical from inside the arch, hitting 10 of his 16 shots. Brooks rarely ventures beyond the three point line and that was evident that night, as he missed his only attempt from three. Will Oregon be able to replicate their performance from earlier this season? Or will Utah be up for the challenge tonight?
In their semi-final against Cal, the Golden Bears pushed them to the limit, forcing over time. This was a hotly contested battle that went back and forth for much of the night. Whenever one side went on a little bit of a run, the other would answer back immediately. Jakob Poeltl was the reason why Utah won that game. He was often isolated in one on one match ups and led all scorers with 29 points. A majority of the Austrian’s shots came in and around the rim and was 10-18 on the night and nine of 12 from the stripe. Poeltl also limited Cal’s big man, Kingsley Okoroh to a mere two points on the night.
In Puerto Rico at the Puerto Rico Tip Off, Utah got absolutely destroyed by the Miami Hurricanes. The Hurricanes dominated from start to finish and won that match up by 24 points. The Utes have had a couple of bad losses like this throughout the season but are peaking at the right time and should pose a threat to Oregon and the schools they come against in the NCAA Tournament.
Utah have perhaps been one of the biggest surprises in the country as they boast a record of 26-7 and a conference record of 13-5. Their worst loss of the season was perhaps against Wichita State. At the time, it did not seem that bad considering the fact that the Shockers were still a popular team. But as the season wore on, Wichita lost more and that hurt their RPI. The Utes best win though, was without a doubt their win over the then seventh ranked Duke. This win came at the Madison Square Garden where the Blue Devils have won so many times.
Oregon can beat you in a myriad of ways and are a touch match up for anyone. One of their biggest strengths is their size. Against Arizona in the semi-final, they blocked numerous shots and took Ryan Anderson out of the game. And then Elgin Cook and Chris Bouchard went to work. The duo combined for 41 points with the Senior Cook, leading the charge with 22 of those. But there was a point in the game when Oregon nearly lost. Arizona had the chance to win it at the line with a second left, but Mark Tollefson could only make one of the two free throws which forced overtime.
Perhaps the lone question marks on Oregon’s season are their losses to Oregon State, Boise State and UNLV. The Ducks will know that they should have at least beat Oregon State on the road. While this is a rivalry game, the gulf in class is miles apart from one another. These loses though, will certainly not bother anyone on the team if they were to cut down the net at the MGM tonight.
The Oregon Ducks enter this game with a 27-6 record which puts them in the top ten nationally. And in the conference they have gotten bigger. Perhaps their biggest win of the season came against the Arizona Wildcats on the road. The Ducks knocked off Arizona which ended their long home winning streak, winning 83-75. This win solidified Oregon’s belief that they were indeed the best team in the conference this season.
Hello and welcome to VAVEL USA’s LIVE coverage of the PAC-12 Championship Game! The best two teams in the conference will do battle as the Oregon Ducks take on the Utah Utes. It’s a late tip off tonight as the proceedings get underway at 10:00 PM EST from the MGM Grand Arena. My name is Kyle Sennikoff and I will be taking you through all of tonight's action.