Playoff Recap: Utah 103, Dakota 93

We have a short recap today, as I had some problems with Futurecast and Scott's currently off in the wilds of North Dakota somewhere.

Blake Ahearn seems to have fixed whatever was wrong in the 4th quarter against Iowa, but apparently passed it on to everyone else on his team.  Actually, that's not entirely fair as Richard Hendrix had six rebounds by the end of the first.  Given that, it would've been nice to see him finish with more than 11, and even without Kosta Koufos, Utah finished with a 48-34 rebounding advantage.  The rest of the team, though, couldn't buy a shot for large stretches of the game.  David Monds and Renaldo Major finally got it going in the second half, but it was too late at that point and Ahearn cooled down.  Actually, Ahearn shot 1-4 in the fourth quarter with two of his six turnovers.  Maybe we should wonder about fatigue with him the same way we do with Marcus Williams.

A passel of turnovers allowed Utah to take an early 14-point lead, and from there the Wizards were just playing catchup.  They had the lead briefly, but Utah got it back and didn't look back.  Mo Almond was solid early on, but JR Giddens had 12 points in the 3rd quarter, 10 of them coming from either layups, dunks or tip-ins.   The Flash also went to the free throw line eight times in that quarter.

Utah showed off its depth a little bit (seriously this time) during the rest of the game, as different guys got hot at different times. Andre Ingram for a stretch spanning the first and second quarters, Ronald Dupree at the end of the second and beginning of the third, and Kevin Kruger and Carlos Wheeler every now and then.  (Kruger Wheeler Dupree & Ingram would be an awesome law firm).

Other things:

Rough night for the Utah announcer.  I heard everything from "Blank Ahearn" to "Jake Ahearn" to "Blake Hahearn," as well as "Kyle Kruger."  He also likes saying "it's jam time" when a Flash player dunks, which must've been confusing during the Bakersfield game.  Or as the announcer called them, Bakerville.

I don't know when James Lang decided to grow a Freeway beard, but I love it.

A small-ish announcement after the jump.

Scott's going to take a well-deserved break for a little while, so for now, I'm in charge here.  I'm going to try and keep to RU's publishing schedule, but I'm also not as tapped into the league as Scott is, so bear with me.  So for now expect a few less mid-90s wrestling reference, a few more early-90s wrestling references, and hopefully some fun.

To be honest, I feel a bit like Andy French when he started work at the ad agency.  "I hope you know how."