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OREM — Despite leading the majority of the night, Utah Valley again struggled down the stretch and lost its fourth in row, 68-54, to Southern Utah Saturday night.
The Wolverines were on top for 32:22 minutes before the Thunderbirds took their first lead and outscored the hosts 23-9 the rest of the way.
"We can't have performances like this," Utah Valley coach Mark Pope said. "This is not acceptable and like I said, this is all on me."
Marcel Davis had a career-high 28 points on 11 of 15 shooting to pace all scorers. His teammates, however, combined to go just 12 of 48 from the floor.
"I've been here before where you're going through a long stretch and you have a guy step up every night, but you just can't get a Robin for Batman on any given night," Pope said. "You can't get a Scottie Pippen for Michael Jordan, or you can't get a Klay Thompson for Steph Curry and you need it. And we didn't have it."
Davis made his fourth 3-pointer with 5:38 left to push the Wolverines ahead for the final time, 50-49, but on Southern Utah's next possession Race Parsons was fouled attempting a 3-pointer and he made each of his free throws to put the Thunderbirds up for good.
"We had some costly turnovers, missed a couple of shots and had a couple breakdowns," Davis said of the final five-plus minutes in which Utah Valley surrendered 18 points and managed only five.
The Wolverines' inexperience was once again on display as they were outplayed toward the end of each half.
Utah Valley held its biggest advantage, 20-12, with 8:55 remaining in the first half, and proceeded to commit four fouls and four turnovers prior to halftime to allow Southern Utah to make it 26-22.
"We just were stuck and we're in molasses and we have no pace to the game," Pope said of the stretch. "It's gravity. When you play the way that we would like to play you're always fighting gravity, and we lost big time to it today."
The Wolverines couldn't keep up the speed they prefer to play with in transition and produced just eight total assists.
Pope said he never felt he had his team "right on the floor," which was a contrast to the solid moments it strung together over brief periods of time leading up to the game.
"That's fatigue and that's emotionally tired and that's nervousness and that's having no idea how to win a game," he said of Utah Valley's 18 turnovers. "They're really really trying, they were just super disoriented tonight."
Ivory Young returned from an ankle injury that sidelined him four games to score seven points off the bench — good enough for the second-best output from a Wolverines player. Andrew Bastien also contributed five points and team highs of seven blocks and nine rebounds in his first run of extended playing time since re-aggravating a previous knee injury in the second game of the season.
Next up for Utah Valley is its final in-state contest of the year, when Weber State visits the UCCU Center Wednesday at 7 p.m.
Kyle Spencer is a freelance journalist residing in Orem. You can find him on Twitter @kyledspencer or reach him by email at kspence04@gmail.com.
