From Deseret News archives:
Snowbears out of sync, but win
That was the only good thing head coach and owner Ike Austin saw about the game.
The Snowbears came out flat, rallied from an early deficit to open up a 15-point margin in the fourth quarter, then let the Drillers burrow their way back into a game they should have been out of.
Clay Tucker's 33 points paced the Snowbears, while Tony Farmer added 16 and Curtis Millage had 14.
Tucker shot 50 percent from the field, knocking down 13 of 26 shots , but Austin would not say he was happy with anyone's performance on the night.
"Tonight was a tough night. I don't know if they were still on Christmas break or what," he said. "Calgary came in here to get a win, they came in and played hard. They put us out of sync. Our guys were flat not ready to play."
The Snowbears struggled from the field in the first quarter, uncharacteristically falling behind as the Drillers opened with a 10-4 run.
The game took place more than a month after the Snowbears were supposed to take on the Calgary Drillers twice on the road in Canada in the ABA season opener before coming back to Utah for two more games . Arena and financing woes held up the season opener, and Visalia (Calif.) stepped in to play the second pair of games and Calgary is now trying to catch up to the rest of the league in games played.
After battling to take a two-point lead at the break behind Tucker's 16 first-half points, the Snowbears appeared to have the game in hand when, with just under 10 minutes to play, Jared Ramirez hit back-to-back threes and Tony Farmer drilled another in less than a minute to spike the Snowbears lead from eight to 15.
The Snowbears got lazy when they jacked the lead up to 15, Austin said, promising to make the team work on staying down in their defensive stances in tonight's game.
"They didn't respond to the challenge. I don't know if they were getting bigheaded because they're 12-0, but anybody can beat you on any given night," Austin said.
Tucker's stop-and-pop in the lane in the final seconds of the first half sent Utah to the locker room with a two-point lead after a back-and-forth second quarter. The Snowbears' biggest margin of the first half was five, but Driller forward Owens erased that lead with a 3-pointer with 3:33 left in the half.
The Snowbears will be in action again tonight and Thursday against Las Vegas at 7 p.m. at SLCC.
E-mail: rburton@desnews.com
