High-flying Falcons soar past Utes

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Air Force came into Wednesday night's game against Utah holding the nation's longest home winning streak at 28.

The last team to beat the Falcons at Clune Arena was Utah in 2005. Before that, the last time the Falcons had lost at home was in 2003, when — guess who — the Utes beat them.

However, the Utes, odd-year magic didn't work Wednesday night at Clune Arena as the Falcons absolutely crushed the Utes 69-43 before 5,858 fans. The loss was the worst ever for the Utes against the Falcons, eclipsing last year's 22-point defeat here.

Two long scoring droughts, one in each half, kept the Utes from challenging the 14th-ranked Falcons, who improved to 22-4 overall and 9-3 in Mountain West Conference play, and matching last month's upset victory in Salt Lake.

Nick Welch, who scored just two points in the 85-79 loss in Salt Lake, led all scorers with 20 points, while Dan Nwaelele added 19.

The Utes, who fell to 9-15 and 4-7 in MWC play, had just one player in double figures as Luke Nevill scored 16 points on 8 of 13 shooting.

"We just couldn't sustain getting stops," said Ute coach Ray Giacoletti. "We had a lot of breakdowns all the way through with foul trouble and turnovers. And you've got to have somebody knock down a shot."

When Utah handed the Falcons one of their four losses last month at the Huntsman Center it was due in large part to 70 percent field-goal shooting.

This time, after hitting two 3-pointers in the first two minutes, they went cold and made just 2 of 12 the rest of the way. For the night, the Utes shot just 43.9 percent from the field.

Both Shaun Green and Johnnie Bryant, had off-nights. The Utes' two top 3-point shooters, shot long air-balls on their first tries, which caused the Falcon students to chant "air-ball" at both players during the rest of the game.

Green finished with two points and four turnovers, while Bryant went scoreless before hitting a couple of late 3-pointers for six points.

That was the Falcons' strategy to not let Green and Bryant go off.

"Our game plan was not to double Luke Nevill, but just make it difficult for him to earn his points," said AFA coach Jeff Bzdelik. "We certainly didn't want their other players scoring. We knew Nevill would get his, but we didn't want all-star games from anybody else."

The Utes actually started the game strong, racing to an 8-2 lead in the first two minutes after Ricky Johns and Luka Drca each sank 3-pointers.

The Utes still led 14-12 with 13 minutes left when they went on one of their famous cold streaks, going nine possessions without a score. Meanwhile the Falcons ran off 16 straight points to pretty much put the game away.

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