Author: Jesse

The Utah Jazz have come into this season with some promising players, but who is the one who is showing the most results? In our latest NBA Reacts, I wanted to see who Jazz fans think is their most improved player, and it’s clear that Jazz fans look at Keyonte George as that player.

This isn’t a surprise. George is averaging a career high in scoring, assists, and free throw attempts (22.1 PPG, 7.2 assists, 8.4 FTA). These are monster numbers from George, who is also improving his field goal percentage. George has become a huge success story for the Jazz, who are in desperate need of some success from their young players.

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On top of the numbers, George has shown some real leadership on the floor. His mentality and maturity are on clear display. You see him multiple times during the game, talking with teammates, figuring out how to improve. He also has shown great body language and is getting back on defense every time. Something that wasn’t always a given last season. Speaking of defense, George is defending at a much better level. He’s not a lockdown defender by any means, but he is putting in effort and getting just under 1 SPG, also a career high.

Utah is now looking like they have the heir apparent to Mike Conley, they have been looking for, and a player that will fit nicely with whoever they add to this team down the road.

Nevada travelled to Logan, Utah, to take on Utah State for the last time as Mountain West foes. The Aggies came into this game a perfect 4-0 at home and extended that to 5-0 after a lopsided 51-14 win over the Wolf Pack.

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There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Nevada was pretty bad. The offense struggled to pick up first downs, let alone get on the scoreboard. Utah State’s offense dominated all the way through and put up over 40 points in the first half alone.

Scoring Summary

1st Quarter:

13:19: Bryson Barnes 53-yard TD pass to Brady Boyd (Tanner Rinker PAT)

Nevada 0 – Utah State 7

8:21: Miles Davis 3-yard TD run (Tanner Rinker PAT)

Nevada 0 – Utah State 14

2:42: Tanner Rinker 32-yard FG

Nevada 0 – Utah State 17

1:54: Brevin Hamblin 38-yard interception return for a TD (Tanner Rinker PAT)

Nevada 0 – Utah State 24

2nd Quarter:

11:13: Tanner Rinker 44-yard FG

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Nevada 0 – Utah State 27

7:59: Bryson Barnes 15-yard TD pass to Anthony Garcia (Tanner Rinker PAT)

Nevada 0 – Utah State 34

0:04: Miles Davis 1-yard TD run (Tanner Rinker PAT)

Nevada 0 – Utah State 41

3rd Quarter:

7:51: Bryson Barnes 21-yard TD pass to Brady Boyd (Tanner Rinker PAT)

Nevada 0 – Utah State 48

4:24: Chubba Purdy 41-yard TD pass to Caleb Ramseur (Joe Mcfadden PAT)

Nevada 7 – Utah State 48

4th Quarter:

8:22: Chubba Purdy 34-yard TD pass to Jett Carpenter (Joe Mcfadden PAT)

Nevada 14 – Utah State 48

5:13: Tanner Rinker 21-yard FG

Nevada 14 – Utah State 51

Final: Nevada 14, Utah State 51

Offense

It was another quiet first drive for Carter Jones and Nevada’s offense with a three-and-out.

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The offense continued to be extremely dead in the first quarter. The Wolf Pack didn’t pick up a first down until the 2:33 mark, but that was quickly wiped away after Jones threw a pick-six to make it 24-0 Utah State.

It looked like Nevada had a big break on a 43-yard run by Herschel Turner, but a holding penalty wiped the small momentum Nevada gained on that play.

Jones simply didn’t look. comfortable against Utah State’s defense. He threw two picks in the first half and ended the night going 1-6 with minus one yard.

Only one first down was recorded by Nevada in the first half as well. The offense picked up 47 total yards in that span and finished the game with 242. It was arguably one of the worst first halves of football in program history.

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AJ Bianco got the ball to start the second half, followed by Purdy getting a few snaps at the QB spot. Bianco got the quarterback room into the positive passing yard section, going 6-11 with 43 yards. Purdy was responsible for Nevada’s two touchdowns, a 41-yard pass to Caleb Ramseur and a 34-yard pass to Jett Carpenter.

Purdy finished with 80 passing yards, 45 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Nevada picked up 11 first downs, with only one of them coming in the first half and gave up three turnovers.

Defense

It only took four plays for Utah State’s offense to find the endzone. Nevada forced a quick third down, but Aggies QB Bryson Barnes made two complete passes, including a 53-yard dot for the touchdown.

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Utah State continued to dominate the first quarter with a 24-0 lead and went into halftime leading 41-0. Barnes started the first half, going 19-26 with 267 yards and two touchdowns. The Aggies collected 335 yards in the first half alone and a total of 522.

Barnes ended the night 20-27 with 288 passing yards, 40 rushing and three touchdowns. He led Utah State to 41 points before halftime and closed out a dominant night against a Nevada defense that had been playing well. Barnes wasn’t sacked once and had no real pressure in the pocket.

What’s Next

Nevada will head back home to host San Jose State on Saturday, Nov. 15, for an early 12:30 p.m. matchup. The Spartans fell victim to Air Force tonight, 26-16, on their home turf.

After another bye week, Nevada gears up for another road game this afternoon against Utah State. The Aggies sit at an even .500 at 4-4 and 2-2 in conference play as they continue their push for a bowl game. Nevada is still eying its first conference win in two years and is out of bowl contention, sitting at 1-7.

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Nevada (1-7)(0-4) @ Utah State (4-4)(2-2)

Location: Maverik Stadium

Date/Time: Saturday, Nov. 8 at 4:30 p.m. PST

Broadcast: CBS Sports Network

Betting line: Utah State favored by 9.5 points. The total of 52.5

History: Nevada is 19-8 all-time. Utah State won the last matchup in 2023 41-24, which was also played in Utah.

Keys to the game

• Bully a weak offensive line

Utah State QB Bryson Barnes has led an excellent offense this season. He’s thrown for 1,808 yards, rushed for 367 and has a total of 21 touchdowns. He can do it all, but that’s partly because he almost has to. His offensive line has given up a conference high of 28 sacks, ranking near the top 10 in the country in that category.

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Nevada’s defensive line, and honestly, defense in general, has played above expectations. The line has been led by Dylan LaBarbera and Jonathan Maldonado, who have combined for 9.5 sacks and 20 tackles for loss. Barnes will hurt you with his arm if given too much time, but an uncontrolled pass rush will allow him to escape and create new windows.

Collapsing the pocket and forcing Barnes to improvise early will give Nevada the best shot at slowing down one of the best offenses in the conference, especially at home as the Aggies average 38.8 points on their home turf.

• Let Herschel Turner have a revenge game

One of the most fun and generic storylines for any sport is when a player returns to play against one of their former teams. Running back Herschel Turner returns to Logan to face his former team. Last year, as a freshman at Utah State, Turner rushed for 405 yards and four touchdowns.

Nevada will need that kind of boost from someone like Turner. The Pack’s rush attack has been abysmal this season and even worse as of late. In the last four games, Nevada’s run game has averaged 86.3 yards. It’ll have a favorable chance against a Utah State defense that allows 185.8 rush yards per game.

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• Only four games left, so steal a game somewhere

Since the start of 2021, Nevada has lost 25 of 27 Mountain West games, including the last 15 in a row. Overall, the Wolf Pack has dropped 38 of its last 46 contests. Head coach Jeff Choate is still winless in conference play with Nevada.

Utah State has won all four of its home games this season with a strong offense. Road games are always going to be tougher than normal, especially against a conference opponent. But Nevada has four games left and needs something to go its way to take it into 2026. Whether that’s stealing a win today in Logan or in the next three games, something has to give.

Prediction

I think this is the game Nevada breaks through. Utah State’s offense is tough, but so is Nevada’s defense. Nevada’s offense hasn’t been great, but neither has Utah State’s defense. Someone told me that Choate will never lose a press conference, and I can say that’s true. I can also say that every loss makes him that much hungrier to break this losing streak. He has that vision, and I see it happening today against the Aggies.

Give me a 27-24 win for Nevada. It may be crazy, but at 1-7, what is there to lose?

Utah wildlife officials are again reminding people that it’s illegal to dump fish into bodies of water after state biologists discovered an unapproved species had been introduced at a southeast Utah reservoir.

Biologists found smallmouth bass at Loyds Lake, located within the Colorado River drainage located southwest of Monticello, while doing routine surveys, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources reported on Wednesday. The reservoir is home to rainbow trout and green sunfish, but not bass, largely because of its proximity to the Colorado River and the threat to native fish within it.

“Due to several endangered fish in the Colorado River, we partner with other agencies to ensure that our sportfish stocking does not interfere with the recovery of native fish. The stocking of sportfish in any drainages in the Colorado River Basin is therefore highly regulated,” said Trina Hedrick, the division’s sportfish coordinator, in a statement. “This illegal introduction is very problematic.”

It’s unclear when the fish were dumped in the reservoir, but the division warns that unapproved species can prey on or outcompete other species approved for a body of water. These include sportfish and native species. New species can also introduce diseases into an ecosystem or impact water quality.

They can also destroy fisheries, which is why it’s a class A misdemeanor to introduce fish into new locations, Hedrick added.

“If we were going to consider the stocking of smallmouth bass, it would get a thorough review and escapement evaluation, and it is highly unlikely that we would stock the species here,” she said.

Anyone who witnesses a person attempting to dump or relocate a fish, or discovers an unauthorized fish species in a body of water, is encouraged to contact state wildlife officials at 800-662-3337.

TAYLORSVILLE, Utah (ABC4) — A suspect is still at large after a juvenile male was shot near Taylorsville High School. This is Utah’s fourth shooting involving teenagers in the past month.

According to the Taylorsville Police Department, the teenager is expected to survive, and the incident is under an active investigation. This comes as nearly six teenagers have been injured or killed in gun violence-related incidents in the past month.

In October, 16-year-old Mason Caballero, a Ben Lomond High School Student, was shot and killed in Ogden. Three people, including two teenagers, have been arrested in the shooting. The father of one of the suspects was also charged with obstruction of justice.

Juvenile shot near Taylorsville High School, suspect still at-large

In another October incident in Ogden, a 15-year-old was allegedly shot and killed by her boyfriend.

Three other teens also lost their lives in separate Halloween shootings in Salt Lake County. On Oct. 25, an 18-year-old man died after a drive-by shooting outside a Halloween party in West Valley City. The following week, on Halloween night, two teenagers were shot at another party in West Valley, and police are still searching for the suspect.

Since 2023, Utah has documented at least 15 gun-related incidents in schools.

According to a report published in 2020 by the Utah Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHS), Utah has had a higher prevalence of high school students reporting that they carried a gun at least one day in the past month compared to the U.S. since 2005.

Gun Violence in Utah: How the Beehive State compares to the rest of the West

DHHS emphasizes firearm safety for teenagers by recommending secure storage, which starts with treating all firearms as if they were always loaded, educating children on what to do if they find a gun, and discouraging alcohol and drug use while handling a firearm.

Latest headlines:

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah.

HYDERABAD, India — Utah State Rep. Jason Thompson and his wife wandered into a market area looking for his daily soda fix: “We were on a hunt for Coke Zero,” said Thompson.

The commercial area turned residential. The couple kept walking until they heard some commotion.

The Thompsons spotted small buses covered with posters. Little did they know, they accidentally found themselves at a political rally.

“A curtain on the bus opened up on one side and I saw dancers,” Dana Thompson said, adding she was curious. “I pulled Jason back and said, ‘Let’s see what this is about.’”

The Utah state representative estimated several hundred people in attendance ahead of a state election on Nov. 11.

Make politics exciting again?

The Thompsons are part of a Utah trade delegation to India that includes business and political leaders who are traveling to six cities over a span of two weeks. The trade mission was organized by World Trade Center Utah and is led by Utah Senate President Stuart Adams.

Locals gave Thompson and his wife scarves and flyers that featured a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and candidate Sri Lanka Deepak, who is running for the state legislative assembly. Music blared from several speakers as drummers chimed in.

“It was lots of positive excitement and I think that’s why we stuck around,” Dana said. Her husband noted that they were there for at least 20 minutes. “Everyone wanted a picture with Dana,” he said, adding he preferred to opt out.

“It is humbling that the world looked to America as the beacon of democracy,” he said. But, he added, the town halls he and his colleagues hold never seem to produce this kind of energy.

India is the largest democracy in the world with 1.4 billion people. By comparison, the U.S. has a population of 330 million.

India is also a fairly new democracy, having gained its freedom from British colonial rule about 78 years ago.

“It was refreshing to see that enthusiasm and the happiness considering the way America is divided right now,” Thompson told the Deseret News at a south-Indian cuisine restaurant in Hyderabad. The waitress brought several Coke Zeros for the state lawmaker as he continued talking.

“Democracy requires moral order, decency. It doesn’t require agreement, right? And that’s where I think we’re getting it wrong in America.”

He joked about replicating the engaging campaign methods he witnessed on the Hyderabad streets. “We’re going to do square dancing on the back of a flatbed,” he said.

Another thought occurred to Thompson. “We’re here, talking to all these businesses and these young entrepreneurs. The fire and the drive and the light that they have in their eyes to go and find success … ,” Thompson trailed off. “They are following a model of capitalism and democracy, a model that, while imperfect, is beautiful and leads to so much for humanity.”

That energy was undeniable at the many meetings Thompson has attended in the first three cities visited by the delegation — Mumbai, the financial and entertainment capital of the country; Pune, the automotive hub also known as the Oxford of the East; and Hyderabad, the “City of Pearls” and a tech powerhouse.

But there is always an elephant in the room: tariffs, and what they mean for the U.S.-India relationship.

But what about tariffs?

The Indian experts who have spoken to the delegation don’t seem alarmed by the prospect of American tariffs and say these minor tensions will fade away with time.

As the delegation wrapped up their first week in India on Friday, news of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans to visit this South Asian country made headlines.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, Trump said his conversations about trade with Modi, the Indian prime minister, were moving forward.

Trump alleged Modi “largely stopped” buying Russian oil, despite Indian authorities denying such claims.

“He is a friend of mine and we speak, and he wants me to go there,” the U.S. president said of his Indian counterpart. “We will figure that out. I will go.”

New Delhi and Washington are still negotiating over the 50% tariffs imposed on India by the United States, while China has managed to strike a deal to lower tariffs.

It wasn’t always like this. In Mumbai, during a discussion with the Utah delegation hosted by the Observer Research Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, Rahul Rawat, a research assistant with ORF, explained that U.S.-India relations have evolved in three parts since India became independent in 1947.

The first 25 years brought a sense of cooperation on education policy as American funding helped set up universities and support research in addition to humanitarian aid.

This was followed by “a period of ups and downs” and a lack of engagement on the policy level despite strong community ties, thanks to the Indians studying at American universities and later settling down.

Rawat described the next chapter as a “seminal time,” where non-linear growth guided policy on the economic and strategic partnership.

“Now, with any such wide ranging and wide encompassing relationship, there is bound to be friction,” he said.

Despite the differences on tariff and visa policy between the two countries right now, Indian and American businesses have managed to coexist, just like two children of arguing parents, said another expert, Srinath Sridharan, a visiting fellow at ORF.

“The water always takes the path of least resistance. We figure out how to make business, despite regulations, despite changing politics or policies,” Sridharan said.

“That is where some of the states (like Utah) are taking the lead in having their own vision under a larger federal vision.”

Utah makes a pitch to India

Guruprasad Sowle, the president and cofounder of Indus International Research Foundation and an advisory board member at World Trade Center Utah, said the U.S., and Utah specifically, is actively looking to India as “an alternative for China.”

“I know it’s a learning curve. I think we’re going about it with cautious optimism,” he said. Sowle considers the tariffs a passing phase, while the presence of Utah businesses exploring India as a potential manufacturing hub for their operations as well as a market shows a path forward.

Utah state Rep. Matt MacPherson in his pitch to the businesses at the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture in Pune on Wednesday said that the Beehive State has “a lot to offer to the world.”

“We are seeking — actively seeking — for policies that will encourage many of our business partners to seek alternatives to China,” he said.

World Trade Center Utah COO David Carlebach made a pitch for Utah, calling it “the most international state in the country,” where many residents have lived abroad for two years to serve missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“The second largest non-U.S.-born population in Salt Lake City is Indians. The first is Mexicans,” he noted. “The state was founded by pioneers, and continues to have the pioneer spirit of problem solving, entrepreneurship, innovation, and it’s an important theme for this trip as well.”

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Tobe Awaka had 12 points and a career-high 18 rebounds, Koa Peat scored 18 points and No. 13 Arizona rolled to a 93-67 win over Utah Tech on Friday night.

The Wildcats (2-0) overcame a sloppy start and some defensive breakdowns by shooting 57% from the floor to win their 24th straight home opener.

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Anthony Dell’Orso had 15 of his 18 points in the first half to spark Arizona out of its funk and Brayden Burries finished with 18 points. Peat hit 6 of 7 shots in the follow up to his 30-point college debut in Monday’s 93-87 win over defending champion Florida.

Awaka dominated inside all night and so did Arizona, which outscored Utah Tech 58-24 in the paint.

The Trailblazers (2-1) had some good moments offensively after an ugly start, but wore down against the bigger Wildcats. Ethan Potter led Utah Tech with 15 points.

Arizona followed its impressive win over No. 3 Florida by committing five fouls and three turnovers in the opening 4 1/2 minutes against the Trailblazers.

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Once the Wildcats and Dell’Orso got rolling, Utah Tech had no answer.

A starter most of last season, Dell’Orso came in firing off the bench, hitting consecutive 3s during and 18-2 run that put Arizona up 31-16. Dell’Orso had 15 points by halftime and Arizona hit 16 of 30 shots, but had a hard time shaking Utah Tech.

The Trailblazers took advantage of defensive breakdowns by the Wildcats, using a couple of short runs to stay within 44-37 at halftime.

Burries converted a three-point play that made it 56-44 with about 4 1/2 minutes into the second half and Arizona led be double figures the rest of the way.

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Dell’Orso and Burries each hit three of the Wildcats’ seven 3-pointers.

Up next

Utah Tech plays at Arizona State on Sunday.

Arizona hosts Northern Arizona on Tuesday.

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