Salt Lake City (AP)-Javon Small scored 18 points to help Virginia-Western beating its former coach Josh Eilert and Utah 71-69 Tuesday evening.
Small hit a pointer at 3 And Eduardo Andre followed with an alley dunk to trigger a wave of 14-6 to give Virginie-Western an advance of 70-64 with 12 seconds to do.
Gabe Madsen made a 3 and Jake Wahlin forced a turnover and scored on a lay-up to pull UTAH at 70-69 with about a second on the left.
Sencire Harris divided a pair of free throws and the attempted 3 points from Madsen was blocked by Joseph Yesufu to end it.
Amani Hansberry and Yesufu added 12 points each for Virginia-Western (17-12, 8-10 Big 12). Jonathan Powell scored 10 points.
Madsen scored 23 points to lead Utah (16-13, 8-10), which ended a sequence of six-game home victories.
Virginia-Western closed the first half on a 10-5 wave for a 30-29 advance at the break. Small scored nine points and Madsen had 13 for Utah. The Utes had its biggest lead, 44-36, with 14 minutes to play before Small begins the late race with 3:42 to play.
Eilert, who joined Utah staff this season and was appointed acting head coach on February 24, passed the 17 previous seasons at Virginia-Western (2007-24) to various titles, including the interim head coach for the 2023-24 season when the Mountaineers finished 9-23. Eilert has taken over the Virginie-Western Virginia program of the coach of the renowned temple Bob Huggins, who resigned following an arrest of drunkenness.
Virginia-Western welcomes the UCF on Saturday while UTAH plays at n ° 23 Byu in the regular season finals.
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