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OREM — Puka Nacua was feeling it during Orem’s 4A boys basketball state quarterfinal Thursday morning at Utah Valley.
Not normally inclined to shoot the lights out of the gym, he picked a good moment to turn it on.
Nacua scored a game-high 27 points, including 19 in the first half, to go along with two blocks and two steals to lead Orem to a 71-56 win over Desert Hills in a 4A state quarterfinal Thursday at the UCCU Center.
Ike Richards added 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting for the Tigers (18-5), who got 13 points and six rebounds from Ross Reeves.
“Puka made his first seven shots, and when he’s making those shots, he can’t be guarded,” Orem coach Golden Holt said of his star point guard who has football offers from the likes of BYU, UCLA, Utah and several schools in between. “Tom Osborne said at Nebraska that you don’t win the game at the end of the game. At some point, you have to break the team’s will. It’s hard to get down in a big game like that and come back from 20 or more down.”
Tucker Peterson had 18 points and 12 rebounds, scoring all but four of his points in the second half for the Thunder (17-6). Trevor Windstorm added 14 points on 3-of-6 shooting from deep for a Thunder team that shot just 35.6 percent from the field, including 16 percent in the first half.
“We watched a ton of film and knew that Tucker Peterson is a beast,” said Nacua, who shot 7-of-8 in the first half and made 8-of-10 field goals. “We knew we had to box him out, and we knew who was trying to score for them. We tried to focus on them, and let the other players beat us.
“Tucker Peterson is a tough kid, but I don’t think they had enough players. Everyone (at Orem) was hot. A two-point lead turned into a 20-point lead really fast.”
Nacua scored seven of the Tigers’ first 12 points, including an effortless stepback 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Orem a 12-3 lead with 3:51 left in the opening quarter.
“They were playing off me, so I was going to let it fly,” said Nacua, the KSL 4A football MVP who averages 10.6 points and 3.2 assists per game. “I don’t like to shoot the ball as much, but they were playing off so I guess it was my turn to shoot every once in a while.”
Nacua had three 3-pointers in the first quarter, and the Tigers rolled out to a 21-6 lead after just eight minutes. The Tigers put together a 19-0 run through the quarter, holding Desert Hills to just one field goal until Lindstrom hit a trey with 3 seconds on the clock.
Desert Hills shot just 4-of-25 from the field in the first half, while Nacua did not miss a shot until a missed outback attempt in the final moments of the second quarter. He made 7-of-8 from the field, including 3-of-3 from 3-point range, for a game-high 19 points by halftime.
“I think I took a drink; it was nice. A 30-point halftime lead at the state tournament doesn’t happen often,” Holt said. “We haven’t put a whole half together very often this year … but that was a 10. It was fun to watch.”
Desert Hills outscored the Tigers 16-10 in the third quarter, but still trailed 55-31 ahead of the final eight minutes.
Tucker Peterson pulled the Thunder inside of a 20-point deficit with back-to-back buckets with 5:54 remaining. But Nacua knocked down his eight-straight free throw to extend the lead back to 59-38 a minute later and the Tigers rolled into Friday’s semifinals.
Both Holt and Nacua credited former BYU guard Nick Emery, who withdrew from the university for personal reasons last November amid an NCAA investigation centering around allegations of improper benefits, for bolstering the Tigers’ defense and 3-point shooting.
“We did something midyear that I’ve never done before, and that is to go straight man-to-man, no switching,” Holt said. “Nick Emery has helped us coach, and Nick can play some defense. He really got the boys engaged in practice to take pride in who you are guarding.
“We’ve gotten a lot better at hedging and helping …. If we can get our best guys guarding their best guys, then we like our chances.”
Juan Diego 59, Hurricane 54
At Utah Valley, Jason Ricketts had 16 points and 11 rebounds, and Matt Kitzman scored 11 to help the Soaring Eagle hold off the Tigers and advance to Friday’s semifinals.
Raimoan Tinirauarii supplied 10 points and nine rebounds for Juan Diego (20-4), which will play Orem at 7:30 p.m. MT Friday night.
Jackson Last led Hurricane with 21 points and three blocks, and Reagan Marshall supplied 10 points and seven rebounds for the Tigers (13-9).
