AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo.—After 30 minutes of deadlocked basketball, Utah finally found its groove against Air Force.
Marshall Henderson scored 16 points, and the Utes held Air Force to a season-low points total in a 54-43 win on Wednesday night.
Henderson scored in double figures for the 11th straight game. Utah (13-14, 6-7 Mountain West) earned a sixth straight win against the Falcons (9-17, 1-12), who have lost 12 of their last 13 contests.
“In the first half, we as a team weren’t making open shots, and I started out 0 for 4,” Henderson said. “We came out in the second half and knew we needed to be more aggressive to open up and make some shots. That’s what we did to open up the half, and everything was good from there.”
The game was tied, 19-19, at halftime. The Utes used a 10-0 run during a 3:42 stretch to take a 44-30 lead with 5:58 remaining.
Grant Parker led the Falcons with 11 points, and Todd Fletcher added 10.
Luka Drca added 13 points and Jay Watkins 10 for Utah.
“I am really proud of my team,” Utah coach Jim Boylen said. “I thought us attacking the rim was the key. We drove it and got our (three-point plays) from driving, instead of just taking them. I thought defensively, we were pretty good.”
Air Force was 16 of 26 (61.5 percent) on 2-point attempts, but made just 2 of 17 (11.8 percent) of its shots from beyond the arc.
“I thought we had a good start, and the pace was where we wanted it,” Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said. “We had a lot of open looks that didn’t go down. The other thing that really hurt us was defensively, we came out in the second half knowing what they were going to do, but we were not able to defend it.”
Utah hit 5 of 10 3-point attempts.
The Utes outrebounded the Falcons 30-18 and won the free-throw battle, making 13 of 19 attempts to Air Force’s 5 of 12.
“In the first half, we took a couple of bad shots and turned it over,” Boylen said. “In the second half, we didn’t do that. Going small to start the second half, I thought that was a good adjustment.”
