Heading into the semester break the UVU men’s basketball team has seen the good, bad and ugly of college basketball. The Ugly came in a preseason spanking at the hands of Trinity Western University. The team from Canada coasted to a 77-58 win over the Wolverines.
Luckily for the team in green, the preseason loss was dropped like the lowest test score at the end of the semester. The good came in the Wolverines home opener as they beat a strong North Dakota State team that was fresh off a NCAA Tournament birth. And the bad came with a trouncing by the eighteenth ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers.
With the early season jitters out of the way, the Wolverines have some tough December battles to wade through before conference play begins. UVU will go on the road to take on two teams from the WAC and a team from the Pac Ten. Filling in the gaps will be games against teams the Wolverines should handle just fine.
UVU will begin their December stretch by welcoming William Jessup University into the McKay Center on Saturday Dec. 8. The Warriors have struggled as of late and the contest should be a nice confidence booster for the Wolverines.
The Wolverines will then head up to Logan for a spat with the Utah State Aggies on Dec. 12 and then return home to face Chadron State and Southern Oregon.
The game that will have everyone’s attention will be on Dec. 28, when the Wolverines travel to California to take on the Cal Golden Bears. Cal has been ranked in the top 25 for much of the season and the match could stand as a proving ground for the Wolverines, determining how they will compare with the rest of the Great West Conference.
UVU will then wrap up the semester break with a game against either UC Santa Barbara or Furman on Dec. 29. How the Wolverines perform over the break could set the tone as they begin GWC play on Jan. 9 against Chicago State in the McKay Center.
