Salt Lake City, Utah - The Thunderbird men's basketball team opened their season on the road Friday night inside the Jon M. Huntsman center against the No. 16 University of Utah Utes, and fell in an extremely close contest 82–71.

“We did a nice job playing at our tempo,” SUU head coach Nick Robinson said after the game. “Utah is a great basketball team, extremely well coached, we came in with a game plan and they adjusted extremely well, but I was definitely pleased with our overall effort as well as our execution for 40 minutes of the ballgame.”

The Thunderbirds came out firing hitting their first six shots of the night, including a pair of three-point baskets for guard Trey Kennedy. The contest remained tight through the entire first half as the Thunderbirds shot 53.6 percent from the field and 50 percent from behind the arc and the Utes only held a two point advantage.

In the second half nearly every time the Utes tried to pull away the Thunderbirds had an answer and kept it close. Down the stretch big plays from the Utes Kyle Kuzma and Jakob Poeltl helped Utah pull away, and despite some late fight from SUU Utah prevailed 82–71.

Kennedy, Travon Langston and A.J. Hess all finished with 13 points for the Thunderbirds. Race Parsons dropped in 12 for the Thunderbirds and James McGee had 10 with three shots from behind the line and a free throw.

Langston said the team learned a lot from this contest.

“We've just got to compete, that's the main thing,” he said. “They're a great team, hats off to them, but we let one go. We've just got to keep competing and keep doing what we do.”

The Utes had two players finish the game with double-doubles, as Poeltl finished with 26 points and 11 rebounds and Kuzma finished with 23 points and 12 rebounds. Jordan Loveridge finished with 24 points for the Utes.

Hess said the game plan for dealing with Utah's size was pretty simple.

“I think our gameplay was to stay solid, play solid defense, make them shoot over the top,” he said. “If they scored hats off to them.”

Despite seeing a few things he wants the team to work on moving forward, Robinson was happy with how the T-Birds executed on Friday night.

“I really like our toughness at this point of the season, but we have a long way to go,” he said. “We've got areas we need to improve on at both ends of the floor, but for us on opening night to contain the excitement of opening night versus a top-25 team and play at the pace that we did and execute what we've been working on for the past few days, I'm definitely pleased with our effort.”