After a highly anticipated off-season, Utah Valley opened its season by hosting Western Colorado on Monday night in a packed house at the UCCU Center.
Todd Phillips, the Wolverines’ head coach, enters his second year at the helm. He started the season off with a dominant 92-57 win and improved to 1-0.
“It’s that time of the year again and we’re really excited to get going,” Philps said, following the win. “It was a good first game, we have a lot of young guys who were just excited to play but overall I thought we did some good things”.
It was an offensive onslaught for the Wolverines racking up 92 points which marks the most they have scored in a game since 2022.
There were 11 different players for the Wolverines who got on the board, four of them reaching double figures.
“I think one of our strengths this year is our depth, which was a weakness for us last year, ” Phillps said. “And we were able to play a ton of guys tonight which was good for us”.
The Welling brothers Carter and Hayden, both put on a show in their first game back in Utah since high school combining for 28 points and seven rebounds. Carter notched a career-high in blocks with five, while Hayden was perfect on the night, shooting 7/7 from the field resulting in 15 points.
Tanner Toolson picked up right where he left off from last year’s productivity scoring 15 points while also creating three turnovers.
Ethan Potter showed out in his return with eight points and eight rebounds in just 19 minutes of play. Trevan Leonhardt led the team in assists dishing out six in his first career start as a Wolverine and Dominick Nelson, another player on the squad reached double-figures with 13 points shooting 5-6 from the floor.
“I think being able to have multiple weapons on the floor is going to really stretch defenses out”, Toolson said, “Coach Phillips has recruited a great team for that exact purpose and that was big time for us tonight.”
Despite a sloppy start with three early turnovers, Utah Valley was able to push into transition quickly leading to a 9-2 run to start the game involving two slam dunks from Toolson and Welling getting the crowd on their feet.
Tyler Halligan helped the Mountaineers stay in the game leading a 15-7 run cutting their deficit to just three at the 10-minute mark of the first half.
Utah Valley started to take control of the offensive glass helping them respond with a 11-0 run of their own.
Hayden Welling and Kylin Green both had back-to-back buckets which lifted the Wolverines to a 19-point lead going into the locker room, 42-23.
Western Colorado opened the second half with a bucket, but Utah Valley quickly took control, firing off a 14-0 run in the first six minutes to seize the lead.
Carter Welling helped Utah Valley extend its lead to the largest of the night at 34 after getting a step on a defender and slamming it home to go out with a bang.
The Wolverines maintained their momentum down the stretch despite a couple of buckets from the Western Colorado propelling them to a dominant 92-57 victory.
Utah Valley improves to 1-0 on opening night and will look forward to a tougher opponent in UTEP on Saturday, Nov. 9
The game will tip-off at 2 p.m. MT and will broadcast live on ESPN+.
