Utah News

Milwaukee Bucks (25-17, fourth in the Eastern Conference) vs. Utah Jazz (10-33, 15th in the Western Conference)

Salt Lake City; Monday, 9 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Milwaukee will attempt to keep its five-game win streak intact when the Bucks take on Utah.

The Jazz are 3-15 on their home court. Utah is 2-2 when it turns the ball over less than its opponents and averages 17.1 turnovers per game.

The Bucks have gone 8-10 away from home. Milwaukee is 10-9 against opponents over .500.

The Jazz score 111.3 points per game, 0.6 more points than the 110.7 the Bucks give up. The Bucks average 114.3 points per game, 4.2 fewer than the 118.5 the Jazz give up to opponents.

TOP PERFORMERS: Lauri Markkanen is scoring 20.0 points per game and averaging 6.1 rebounds for the Jazz. Collin Sexton is averaging 17.0 points and 2.7 rebounds over the last 10 games.

Damian Lillard is scoring 25.1 points per game and averaging 4.5 rebounds for the Bucks. Gary Trent Jr. is averaging 2.0 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Jazz: 2-8, averaging 110.7 points, 46.8 rebounds, 25.4 assists, 6.5 steals and 5.1 blocks per game while shooting 44.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 116.2 points per game.

Bucks: 8-2, averaging 119.6 points, 47.6 rebounds, 27.2 assists, 7.0 steals and 5.1 blocks per game while shooting 50.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 108.5 points.

INJURIES: Jazz: John Collins: day to day (illness), Johnny Juzang: day to day (hand), Cody Williams: day to day (ankle), Jordan Clarkson: out (plantar ), Taylor Hendricks: out for season (fibula).

Bucks: Bobby Portis: day to day (personal), AJ Green: day to day (quad).

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

PROVO, Utah – In their first of two games along the Wasatch Range, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats men’s basketball squad got punched in the mouth by the torrid shooting of BYU Saturday night, 80-52.

To add insult to injury, BYU’s Elijah Crawford hoisted a good 3-pointer at the buzzer. UC has now given up 80 or more points in back-to-back games.

BYU was 15-for-24 from behind the arc, where their marksmanship was far from a secret. The Bearcats could only make 5-for-28. 62.5% easily trumps 18%.

The Bearcats only had one scorer in double figures as Simas Lukošius had 14 points. Richie Saunders had 21 for BYU and Egor Demin had 15. UC led in rebounding 20-17 at halftime but lost at game’s end, 34-28.

Some bad ideas can, with some reflection and revision, be turned into good ideas. Others are unsalvageable. Of this last category are online age verification mandates, an ill-conceived proposal that has — notwithstanding its many defects — gained purchase in the minds of state legislators nationwide.

To date, several states have imposed such mandates on social media platforms, of which many have fallen in court. Age verification carries significant privacy and cybersecurity dangers, often requiring users to upload a picture of government-issued identification documents or to submit to a facial scan. Conditioning Americans’ (including adult Americans’) access to online speech on the offering up of sensitive personal information cannot withstand First Amendment scrutiny — as numerous courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled.

Perhaps seeing these faults, age verification advocates have pivoted from platform-level age verification to app-store-level age verification. The year is young still, but state legislators have rushed to file app store bills in several states, including Alaska, South Carolina and Utah. Utah’s bill — SB142 — would require app stores to verify each user’s age and would allow underage users to download apps only after obtaining “verifiable parental consent.” However, like all bills of its type, SB142’s purported benefits are illusory, and its differentiation from failed platform-level models is scant. If app-store mandates can be considered a road different from platform mandates, both nonetheless arrive at the same unconstitutional destination.

To determine a user’s age, an online service must collect some sort of data. According to the French national data-protection agency, no age-verification software exists “that satisfactorily meets (the) three requirements” of “sufficiently reliable verification, complete coverage of the population and respect for the protection of individual’s data and privacy and their security.” The Australian government reached a similar conclusion: “Each type of age verification or age assurance technology comes with its own privacy, security, effectiveness or implementation issues.” These manifest defects in the technology — when foisted on users by the government —put heavy burdens on Americans’ speech rights.

Requiring verification of app stores instead of platforms fails to erase these risks. Sensitive personal data must still be harvested from users, making that data vulnerable. Even government agencies and the largest corporations fall victim regularly to hackers, as do third-party identity-verification services. The additional risks that attend online age verification distinguish it from offline age checks, such an ID check at a bar or tobacco shop. The weight of these additional impositions on the constitutional rights of adult Americans doom online age verification mandates to death-by-injunction.

Age verification mandates are among a suite of children’s safety policies that concerned activists and politicians have advanced in recent years, usually with sterling motives. Besides examining intentions, however, one must also ask whether their proposed solutions will, in practice, protect children. It seems they will not. First off, requiring children to submit personal data to tech companies seems likelier to endanger their privacy and security. Children can, moreover, dodge app-store age verification by using devices on which app stores do not act as gatekeepers, such as desktops, laptops, gaming consoles and other internet-enabled devices.

It bears emphasis that, as noted by the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, attempts to simply ban children from certain types of media trespass on parental rights and responsibilities. “While some of the legislation’s effect may indeed be in support of what some parents of the restricted children actually want, its entire effect is only in support of what the State thinks parents ought to want,” Justice Scalia wrote.

Usually, age verification bills propose to block children under the designated age threshold from accessing social media. Parents everywhere should consider whether they wish the government to make such decisions.

Intending to write an effective and constitutional bill does not, unfortunately, guarantee that the final product will be anything of the kind. Promoting an ineffectual policy at the cost of the speech rights of every adult American social media user fails by every metric of good governance. The digital world operates by the same laws — both constitutionally and economically — as the “real” world. Lawmakers — in Utah and nationwide — must work within the constraints of the available technology and the Constitution to craft policy that will work in practice, not just in theory.

It’s probably a good thing Utah won’t have much time to reflect on its 34-point loss at No. 7 Houston on Wednesday.

The Runnin’ Utes have to move on quickly — they’ll play three games in seven days, including a two-game homestand that features a matchup Saturday against Baylor and a contest against Cincinnati on Tuesday.

While the Big 12-leading Cougars are a headache for every opponent, particularly when they play at home at the Fertitta Center, Houston forced the visiting Utes into countless mistakes.

The result was a 70-36 Utah loss that extended the Cougars’ home court winning streak to a nation’s-best 33 games.

While the loss wasn’t surprising, it was how the Utes fell that disappointed head coach Craig Smith.

Prior to Wednesday, Utah had been on a three-game winning streak during which it had shown a physicality and assertiveness that gave the Utes hope they could be competitive in the Big 12 Conference after a dismal start to league play.

“I hoped we would have performed better than we did. We’ve just got to learn from it and grow from it,” Smith said. “You know, we did have a nice little run there with the three-game winning streak and all good things must come to an end. But we’ve got to learn and grow.”

Now, the Utes (11-7, 3-4 Big 12) will try and bounce back against another Big 12 power — Baylor.

The Bears will visit the Huntsman Center on Saturday (2:30 p.m. MST, ESPN2) in a rematch of the Big 12 opener, when Baylor beat Utah by 25 in Waco, Texas.

There were some similarities in how the Utes lost at both Baylor and Houston.

Utah’s two worst shooting days of the season thus far have come at Baylor (31.8%) and Houston (30.2%).

The Cougars are best known for their physicality and defensive pressure, which often forces opponents to rush things and lose their poise.

“It’s hard to replicate their speed, their athleticism, their length, that’s the thing. Their big guys can really move, and they’re super long and twitchy,” Smith said.

Turnovers were also a major issue.

The Bears turned 17 turnovers into 22 points, while Houston forced the Utes into a season-high 26 turnovers and converted those into 29 points.

“Taking care of the ball is going to be a premium,” Smith said.

Baylor has a stable of veteran guards — Jeremy Roach, Robert Wright III and Jayden Nunn — that will challenge the Utes again, while Miami transfer Norchad Omier anchors the front court. He had 15 points and 14 rebounds when Utah and Baylor met earlier this year.

Then there’s true freshman VJ Edgecombe, a projected lottery draft pick, who is averaging a team-high 16.9 points per game in Big 12 play.

“Their perimeter is very athletic, similar to Houston that way. They’re not like crazy trapping and going out, but they’re going to switch one through five,” Smith said. “There’s going to be times their five is going to be guarding our point guards, and their point guard is going to be guarding our five man, and we’ve got to be able to handle that switching defense better than we did last time.”

From a purely athletic standpoint, both Baylor and Houston have among the toughest rosters to match up against in the Big 12.

While matching up athletically with teams like Baylor and Houston won’t be easy for Utah, given the limitations of their roster, there are ways — mainly effort and a tough mindset — to try and counteract that.

“We’ve got to be tougher. You’ve got to have physicality. You got to get your work done early,” said Smith, who noted that when Houston set the physical tone, some of his players struggled to deal with that.

“It’s a mindset. You’ve got to be worried about the process, do things the right way, but also you have to have an elite mindset and a warrior spirit and a competitive spirit. It’s easy to talk that out, but you’ve got to crave that when things aren’t going.”

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) — Cole Perfetti scored three goals for his first NHL hat trick and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Utah Hockey Club 5-2 on Friday night.

Nikolaj Ehlers had a goal and two assists to reach 500 points for his career, and David Gustafsson also scored for Winnipeg. Connor Hellebuyck had 17 saves.

Barrett Hayton and Nick Schmaltz scored for Utah, and Connor Ingram stopped 25 shots.

Perfetti gave Winnipeg a 3-2 when he lifted the puck over a fallen Ingram on a pass from Vladislav Namestnikov at 5:51 of the third.

Ehlers scored on a breakaway with 7:44 left, and he reached the 500-point mark with an assist on Perfetti’s empty-net goal that completed his hat trick with 1:45 to go.

Perfetti opened the scoring with a one-timer past Ingram with 2:08 left in the first period.

Utah tied it as Schmaltz deflected Michael Kesselring’s point shot past Hellebuyck at 1:13 of the second.

Gustafsson took advantage of a bad bounce off the boards on a shot by Dylan DeMelo that drew Ingram out of position and fired the puck into an open net at 8:48.

Hayton tied it 2-2 at 1:19 of the third.

Takeaways

Utah: Utah relied on Ingram to make many saves as the Jets just kept firing and managed to score on their rare chances. They may have tired in the third after playing in Minnesota on Thursday night.

Jets: Winnipeg came out firing pucks and it paid off with a pair of slumping forwards scoring. They kept the pressure on, even after Utah tied the score early in the third period.

Key moment

Ehlers stole the puck at his own blue line and raced down the ice on a breakaway and beat Ingram by sliding in a backhand with little more than seven minutes left in regulation to give Winnipeg a 4-2 lead.

Key stat

Perfetti snapped a 14-game scoring slump.

Up Next

Utah visits Ottawa on Sunday, and Jets host Calgary.

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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL