University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
UNC Asheville
Utah
Bulldogs Roar Past Utah 87-65; Primm Earns 500th Career Assist
11.27.2011 | Men's Basketball
The Bulldogs (3-4) finished in seventh place in the tournament after losing close games to Connecticut and College of Charleston the first two nights.
Asheville also got 16 points from Jeremy Atkinson, 15 points from Matt Dickey and 14 points from Chris Stephenson. Jaron Lane played for the first time in the tournament and added eight points. He missed the games against UCONN and College of Charleston with an ankle injury.
Primm finished with five assists in the game and now has 503 in his career.
The Utes (1-5) were led by Jason Washburn and Josh Watkins with 21 points each.
"This is a great win for UNC Asheville. To lose two tough games like we did back-to-back and to come out and play as well as we did is very encouraging," stated Asheville coach Eddie Biedenbach. "We grew up a little bit tonight. I thought we had a tremendous team effort as everybody who played contributed and made plays for us this evening."
The Bulldogs used a 14-2 surge in the first half to take the lead. Asheville trailed 15-14 but behind the scoring of Primm raced to a 28-17 lead. The Bulldogs pushed the lead to 14 at 34-20 on freshman Keith Hornsby's trey with 6:30 left.
The Utes began to rally behind Washburn and Watkins. The duo helped Utah rally to carve the lead to 39-34 with two minutes left in the half before Asheville settled for a 41-34 halftime lead. The Utes went on a 14-5 run with Washburn and Watkins combining for all 14 points.
"We battled hard tonight for 40 minutes and cut down on some of the mistakes we made the past two nights," stated Biedenbach. "Utah is going to be a good team and is well-coached. Josh Watkins and Jason Washburn were very tough for us to stop but we were able to slow them down some in the second half.
Primm led Asheville with 11 points in the opening half, while Stephenson scored nine. Washburn went 6-of-9 from the field and knocked down two free throws to finish with 14 points in the opening half. Watkins had 10 points.
In the second half, Washburn tapped in a missed shot with 15:36 left to get Utah within 53-48.
But the Bulldogs took control of the game. Asheville went on a 12-0 run, scoring on five straight possessions to roar to a 65-48 lead. Dickey, who was held to three points in the first half, tallied eight points during the run.
The Blue & White continued to build on the lead and Primm's long three-pointer with 7:40 remaining pushed the margin to 76-53.
Utah got no closer than 17 points the rest of the way as Asheville pushed its record to 2-1 all-time against teams from the Pac-12.
The Bulldogs outscored the Utes 46-31 in the second half and shot 54 percent (15-of-28) from the field in that half.
Primm was 7-of-12 from the field and 4-of-7 from long range.
UNC Asheville opens Big South Conference play Thursday night when the Bulldogs play at Gardner-Webb at 5:30 p.m.
"This is a great way for us to go into Big South Conference play," commented Biedenbach. "These three games will help us this throughout the year starting on Thursday night."
NOTES
This is the first time a Bulldog team has played three games in three days since the 2000 Big South Conference Tournament when Asheville played three games in three days as it reached the league title game.
Matt Dickey has scored in double figures in seven straight games.
Asheville had a season-low six turnovers.
Jeremy Atkinson's 16 points was a career-high for him at UNC Asheville.
Asheville outscored Utah 24-8 on points off turnovers.
