The 2009 NCAA Tournament 1st Round

The long-awaited NCAA tournament has begun this past weekend. The 1st round of the tournament took place on Thursday and Friday. Games began at 10am and ended at about 11pm each night. There have been a few big upsets and close games and small college heroes. I stayed up each night enjoying the games and sitting on the edge if my seat for most of them.

The Utah teams didn’t fare so well in this tournament. BYU played Texas A&M, Utah played Arizona, and Utah State played Marquette and each of them lost.

BYU played first on Thursday morning facing the Aggies of Texas A&M. The Cougars were cold at the start not being able to hit very many of their shots. Texas A&M on the other hand was hot and got off to a good start. The combination of these two factors put BYU in a hole early and they were never able to recover. Texas A&M was bigger, more athletic, and just a better all around team than BYU. The Cougars tried to recover in the 2nd half and as close as 8 points at one time, but the Aggies hit a couple of 3 point shots to stop BYU’s run. The final score was Texas A&M 79 BYU 66.

Utah State played their game against Marquette on Friday morning. The first half was not good for Utah State, just like BYU’s game. The Aggies were unable to hit many shots and Marquette took an early lead in the first half. Utah State came out in the second half and played like a different team. They were making their shots, played a strong zone defense, and made this game a great finish. The Aggies held in there with Marquette until the very end where they trailed by 1 point and barely missed a 3-pointer with 5 seconds left for the win. Utah State played tough, but lost to Marquette by a score of 58-57.

The University of Utah played against the Arizona Wildcats on Friday night. The Utes were unable to hold in there with the Wildcats. Arizona was just too physical, too big, and too fast for the Utah Utes. Utah’s big man, Luke Nevill, got in foul trouble early and was taken out of the game early. Utah lost to Arizona by a score of 84-71.


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