Gabe Madsen scores 20 points in 2nd half to lift Utah to 96-65 win over Queens

SALT LAKE CITY — After back-to-back games as the team's leading scoring, Gabe Madsen finally turned the honor over to someone else Tuesday night.

Well ... until the final minutes of the game.

San Francisco transfer Mike Sharavjamts, who goes by Mongolian Mike, took the honor for a majority of the game with a career-high 19 points before Madsen scored 20 points in the second half to lead the team with 24 points en route to a 96-65 win over an aggressive and physical Queens teams.

Sharavjamts had his usual highlight-inducing no-look passes, transition layups, blocked shots, and an all-around control of a game that Queens cut to 7 points to start the second half before the Runnin' Utes (3-0) pulled away for good.

But Madsen was just too much down the stretch and finished with five 3-pointers, three rebounds and three assists. Utah's Miro Little and Ezra Ausar added 10 points apiece, with Ausar finishing with a double-double with 11 rebounds.

"It was a bit of a choppy game," head coach Craig Smith said. "I thought we had some really good spurts, some really poor spurts, and it just seemed like that."

"I think for a little bit there it just was kind of some low energy, or a little slow, whatever it was," Madsen said. "I think we've just got to hang our hats on every night just being the most together team, and that was something we kept saying was we've got to keep passing it ahead, passing ahead."

Queens (2-1) generally stifled Utah's usually free-flowing style of play for much of the game, challenging every possession and making the Utes earn every bucket they could get in contested fashion — especially behind the perimeter, where Utah was averaging 19 made 3-pointers a game.

The Royals held Utah mostly in check from deep in the first half, giving little room for easy look, and allowing only five made 3-pointers. But the sharpshooting Utes continued to attack and finished the night making 14 triples on a 47% shooting rate.

"A lot of good things tonight, even though it felt like not as good for a stretch," Smith said. "But at the end of the day, when you look at the numbers, we still held them to 35.9% from the field. It felt like we didn't shoot it well tonight, but at the same time, we shoot 47% from the three, made 14 of them. So it wasn't the clip that we had been shooting — that's a great number."

Utah jumped out to a 14-5 lead early in the game to set the tone of the game and eventually built up a 19-point lead in a disjointed first half before Queens took advantage of some defensive lapses and cut the Utes lead down to 10 points at the halftime break.

A few plays into the second half, Queens hit a corner 3-pointer and suddenly the ASUN team had made it a 7-point game.

Utah continued to fight, though, as the team got into more of a rhythm and found open looks behind the 3-point line, while letting their bigs — Ausar, Keanu Dawes, and Jake Wahlin — have success in the post to help space the floor.

Utah also won the rebounding battle 52-33, got Queens' bigs in foul trouble early and put the Utes in the bonus with 10:52 left in the game, and managed 23 second-chance points for the night's advantage.

The Royals were led in scoring by Chris Ashby, who finished with 14 points, including four made 3-pointers. Bryce Cash added 11 points, and Asjon Anderson and Jaxon Pollard contributed 10 points apiece in the loss.

"I didn't think we did as a good of job tonight, especially the first half, pitching the ball ahead, like looking up the floor, because there were guys open," Smith said. "But at the end of the day, we shot almost 50% from the field, and so that was a good sign."

Utah will take a step up in competition on Sunday when the team travels to Mississippi to take on an undefeated Mississippi State (3-0) team that is receiving votes in the latest Associated Press Top 25 rankings that were released Monday.

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