Utah Tech (9-5, 1-0) at Utah Valley (10-4, 1-0) – 4:00 PM ET (ESPN+)
There are a lot of great UTR matchups today (Charleston-Towson and James Madison-Marshall come to mind), but we at Hoops HD will not pass up a top-notch Beehive matchup when it presents itself. The Trailblazers of Utah Tech travel to Orem to take on the Wolverines at Utah Valley. Utah Tech had a close 5-point loss at Utah State in the beginning of December, but followed that game up with a 12-point win at Weber State to improve to 1-1 in the Beehive and spark what is now a 6-game win streak (although only 3 games are against D1 competition). Isaiah Pope had 20 points in Tech’s WAC opener against UTRGV.
Mark Madsen’s Wolverine squad got off to a slow 3-4 start, but they have caught fire of late with a 7-game winning streak of their own. In their last two wins, they defeated Oregon 77-72 in Eugene and also hammered Sam Houston State 80-64 in their WAC opener. UVU was led by Tahj Small (19 points) and La’Tre Darthard (15 points) in their win against the Bearkats.