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ST. GEORGE — In a season and time where there are very few constants, Southern Utah winning men’s basketball games has been one of them.
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With their 85-80 win over the Idaho Vandals on Thursday night and 83-67 victory on Saturday, the Thunderbirds recorded their eighth-straight win to set a school record in its Division I era and extended it to nine on Saturday.
They’ve won every game they’ve played after a close 85-83 loss to Loyola Marymount in their season opener on Nov. 25.
SUU maintained its momentum from a successful December into a new calendar year.
“After a long layoff, you just don’t know what you’re going to look like,” SUU head coach Todd Simon said. “Luckily, we were able to make shots — which we’re good at. We just need to find our way defensively.”
The Thunderbirds last went on such a streak from Dec. 19, 2000 to Jan. 11, 2001, winning seven consecutive matches to finish the regular season and start the postseason. The last time the program won five in a row was from Jan. 10 to Jan. 26, 2002.
Southern Utah survived a comeback bid by Idaho on Thursday to clinch the new record. After taking a 47-35 lead into the second half, the Thunderbirds watched the Vandals go 16-for-28 from the field in the second half, outscoring them 45-38 in the final 20 minutes. Tevian Jones scored 12 points in the first half to help build out the lead. He tied for a game-leading 17 points overall with Aanen Moody, who went 5-for-7 on 3-pointers.
Idaho got within a single point with 17 seconds left in the game but finished with two scoreless possessions and sent Marquis Moore and John Knight III to the free-throw line, with each making both of their shots to put the nail in the coffin.
On Saturday, SUU took a 10-point lead into the half but struggled out of the gate in the second. It took three minutes for them to score their first basket and another two to get their second. Under six minutes into the half, the lead shrank to three points. After seven minutes, the lead shrank to a single point.
Idaho took its first lead of the game just before the 10-minute mark at 55-53 before going on a three-minute scoring drought of its own and relinquishing the lead back to Southern Utah.
The Thunderbirds pushed the lead to seven on a Knight layup, drawing the and-one. Following the play, some jawing between players resulted in a dead-ball foul on Utah, and Jones made the resulting pair of free throws, stretching the lead back into double digits. Another technical foul shortly thereafter gave Southern Utah two more free shots and Jones landed them both once again. Idaho did not recover.
? AND ONE ? pic.twitter.com/zFZHqKdyu1
— SUU Men's Basketball (@SUUBasketball) January 9, 2021
Jones scored 30 points total for SUU in the game. He went 9-for-17 from the field, 6-for-11 from the arc and landed all of his free throws. The Thunderbirds scored 21 points from the line on 26 tries.
Without that sequence of events, the game stays close. Idaho had shown in the first 10 minutes of the half it had the talent to compete. The Thunderbirds know that they’ll have to step up their game to keep the streak going.
“Right now we have a tendency to play to the level of our competition,” Moody said after Thursday’s win. “When we figure that out, we’re going to be a championship-level team. But if we’re going to keep playing to the level of our opponent, we’re always leave the door open for teams to come in and beat us.”
On Thursday, the story was the same, as Southern Utah survived a comeback bid by Idaho to clinch the record. After taking a 47-35 lead into the second half, the Thunderbirds watched the Vandals go 16-for-28 from the field in the second half, outscoring them 45-38 in the final 20 minutes. Tevian Jones scored 12 points in the first half to help build out the lead. He tied for a game-leading 17 points overall with Aanen Moody, who went 5-for-7 on 3-pointers.
Idaho got within a single point with 17 seconds left in the game but finished with two scoreless possessions and sent Marquis Moore and John Knight III to the free-throw line, with each making both of their shots to put the nail in the coffin.
Southern Utah gets the chance to add to the record this Thursday at Eastern Washington. The Eagles are 2-4 on the season and have had seven games on their schedule canceled, including their last four games after a positive COVID-19 test in the program forced it to pause on Dec. 30. They last played on Dec. 19.
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