Utah
Mountaineers show grit in closing minutes to win at Utah, 71-69 – WV MetroNews
It remains to be seen if West Virginia’s 71-69 win at Utah is the final necessary piece to secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament field of 68. A fourth road victory in Big 12 play will allow the Mountaineers to enjoy their cross-country flight on Wednesday at the end of a two-game, six-day road trip.
West Virginia (18-12, 9-10 Big 12) erased an eight-point deficit early in the second half and they secured the game with a 7-0 run in the final minutes.
“That was a fun ending again,” said WVU head coach Darian DeVries on the WVU postgame radio broadcast.
“We came out and we didn’t have much that first 15 minutes. I don’t know what the factors are, long road trip, whatever it may be. But what I was really proud of the guys about is that they bounced out of it. They started to find it a little bit and then they started to play with that confidence and swagger we love to see.”
Utah needed less than nine minutes of game time to build a 12-point lead at 19-7. West Virginia nearly erased that deficit with a 10-0 run to pull with a basket at 19-17 with six minutes to play before intermission.
The Mountaineers took their first lead since the opening minutes with a three-pointer from Javon Small with forty seconds left in the half. West Virginia led 30-29 at the break.
In the final minute of the first half, WVU center Eduardo Andre was hit in the face by an elbow while attempting to grab a rebound. He remained on the floor for a few minutes but he returned to the game at the start of the second half with his nose packed with gauze. Andre played the remainder of the half with both nostrils plugged. He scored four points and grabbed three rebounds in 17 minutes on the floor.
With the game tied at 36, Utah regained the advantage with an 8-0 run at the 14-minute mark.
With four minutes remaining and the game tied at 58, West Virginia scored on three consecutive possessions. A three-pointer by Small gave WVU a lead they would not relinquish. Andre followed with a dunk on the next trip down court and a triple from Joseph Yesufu gave the Mountaineers a five-point lead at 66-61 with two minutes to play.
The Utes (16-14, 8-11) scored three consecutive points to pull within a basket. However, Small hit a well-contested runner in the lane to double the Mountaineer advantage to four points with 36 seconds to play.
Trailing by six points [70-64] with four seconds left, Utah’s Gabe Madsen hit a three-pointer to pull the Utes within three. Utah stole the inbounds pass and Jake Whalin’s layup trimmed the deficit to one point with 1.7 seconds left. Sencire Harris made one of two free throws to extend the lead to two points. Yesufu partially blocked at half court heave at the buzzer to preserve the victory.
“I thought in the second half, we really dug in and had some big stops as that half wore on. Offensively, I thought we started to find a little more rhythm in how to go get in the paint and make plays for one another.
“Those seniors made huge plays for us. The urgency they played with — whether it was Joe, Eduardo playing with four cotton things in, Toby [Okani] made some big plays.”
Small led West Virginia with 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the floor. He also dished out a team-best seven assists.
“He has carried us all year. He has been terrific. We have asked a lot of him at both ends of the floor. He has to be a scorer and a playmaker for everybody else. And he has to be a defender. He has really rose in big moments for us and tonight was no different.”
Yesufu and Amani Hansberry each scored a dozen points and Jonathan Powell added ten points.
With the win, West Virginia now has six Quad 1 victories in the NCAA NET ratings, an important metric for determining the NCAA Tournament field in 12 days,
“We’ve got a lot on the line for this game and they knew that. It would be easy if you just don’t have it and you are not playing well to give into it. I thought they did a really good job of just staying together in the huddles and continuing to fight and continuing to find ways to make those little plays. It was a huge win for us. There’s no way to diminish what this was for our season right now.”
West Virginia made 14 of 28 shots from the floor in the second half and they went 9 of 11 from the charity stripe.
Utah owned a 40-31 advantage in rebounds and they attempted 32 free throws compared to WVU’s 16. The lead changed hands ten times in the seesaw contest. Madsen led the Utes with 23 points.
Utah was led by longtime WVU assistant coach and former interim head coach Josh Eilert. He was in his third game as Utah’s interim head coach following the dismissal of Craig Smith last week.
“I want to give a lot of credit to Josh,” DeVries said. “The way he has his team ready in a tough situation and they were competing and fighting and they are well-coached right now. He’s doing a really good job in a tough spot. He is one of those good guys in this profession. Tonight, I told him it was a tough loss and I feel bad for him in that regard. But he’s got this team competing right to the end.”
West Virginia returns home to cap their regular season with their sold-out Senior Day matchup against UCF (15-14, 6-12 Big 12) Saturday. Tip time at the Coliseum is set for 5 p.m.
Utah
22-year-old arrested in Utah in connection to Las Vegas double-homicide
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Officials have identified a 22-year-old man as the suspect in a Las Vegas homicide case that killed two people in a Southern Highlands neighborhood.
Detectives say 22-year-old Ziaire Ham was the suspect in the case. According to officials, Ham was located on Tuesday, March 3, by the Ogden City Police Department and the Utah Highway Patrol.
Ham was taken into custody and booked into the Weber County Jail. Las Vegas authorities said he will be charged with open murder with the use of a deadly weapon and will be extradited back to the valley.
MORE ON FOX5: LVMPD corrections officer arrested on multiple felony charges
The shooting occurred Monday night at the 11000 block of Victoria Medici Street, near Starr Ave and Dean Martin Drive.
According to police, officers were conducting a vehicle stop in the area when they heard gunfire. After searching nearby neighborhoods they found a car with bullet impacts with a woman and a toddler inside suffering from gunshot wounds.
The pair were transported to hospital where they later died. The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified them as Danaijha Robinson, 20, and 1-year-old Nhalani Hiner.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
Utah
Utah nonprofit creates events, experiences for disadvantaged children
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A simple moment watching a child laugh changed everything for Ivan Gonzalez.
Eight years ago, Gonzalez was working at the Ronald McDonald House when he had an idea to throw a birthday carnival for the kids staying there.
“Let’s do a carnival, birthday carnival for the kids,” he said.
MORE | Pay It Forward
What happened during that event stuck with him.
“There I was watching this kid play whack-a-mole, just having a blast, laughing,” Gonzalez said. “And then I see his mom kind of with happy tears because he’s enjoying himself.”
That moment led to something bigger.
Gonzalez realized the experience shouldn’t stop with just one event or just one group of kids.
“I said, wait, we can do this not just for kids in the hospital,” he said with excitement.
So he started a nonprofit called Best Seat in the House, which creates events and experiences for children who often face difficult circumstances.
“We provide events and experiences for disadvantaged kids,” Gonzalez said.
The organization serves children battling cancer and other medical conditions, refugee children, kids living in poverty, those in foster care and children with special needs.
“These kids grow up too fast,” Gonzalez said.
For Gonzalez, the mission is deeply personal.
“I grew up very poor,” he said.
He remembers the people who stepped in for his family when they needed it most.
“The local church, we weren’t even a part of it,” he described. “My parents couldn’t afford Christmas gifts and I still remember the gifts they gave me. They didn’t even know me.”
Today, he hopes to create that same feeling for other children through his nonprofit.
“Kids live in poverty and they don’t know where the next meal is coming from, let alone going to a play or to a game,” Gonzalez said.
But for Gonzalez, the reward isn’t the events themselves, it’s the joy they create.
“You can give me a billion dollars, all the money in the world,” he says as tears roll down his face. “I won’t trade these opportunitieskids just enjoying life.”
Because of his work giving back, KUTV and Mountain America Credit Union surprised Gonzalez with a Pay it Forward gift to help him continue creating those moments for kids across Utah.
For more information on supporting Best Seat in the House, click here.
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Utah
‘Don’t release him ever. Please.’ Family of slain Utah teen calls for justice at parole hearing
SALT LAKE CITY — Francisco Daniel Aguilar says he’s sorry for shooting and killing his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jacqueline “Jacky” Nunez-Millan, a Piute High School sophomore, in 2023.
But just as he did when he was sentenced, he didn’t have much of an explanation on Tuesday as to why he shot her not once, but twice.
“It just kinda happened. I was mad. And I stepped out (of my truck) and started shooting,” he said. “When I saw her fall, I just kind of panicked, I just went and shot her again.”
But Jacky’s friends and family members say even before she was killed, Aguilar already had a history of violence, and they now want justice to be served.
“You don’t accidentally take a gun, you don’t accidentally grab a knife … you don’t accidentally shoot someone, those are all choices,” a tearful Rosa Nunez, Jacky’s sister, said at Tuesday’s hearing. “Keep him where he needs to be.
“Don’t release him ever. Please.”
On Jan. 7, 2023, Aguilar, who was 17 at the time, got into a fight with his girlfriend, Jacky, shot her twice and left her body near a dirt road outside of Circleville, Piute County. He was convicted as an adult of aggravated murder and sentenced to a term of 25 years to up to life in prison.
Because of Aguilar’s age at the time of the offense, board member Greg Johnson explained Tuesday that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is required to hold a hearing much earlier than the 25-year mark, mainly to check on Aguilar and “see how things are going.” Aguilar, now 20, is currently being held in a juvenile secure care facility and will be transferred to the Utah State Prison when he turns 25 or earlier if he has discipline violations and is kicked out of the youth facility.
According to Aguilar’s sentencing guidelines, he will likely remain in custody until at least the year 2051.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Aguilar told the board that he was feeling “stressed out” during his senior year of high school. He said he and Jacky would often have little arguments. But their bigger fight happened when he failed to get her a “promise ring” around Christmastime, he said.
On the night of the killing, the two were arguing about the promise ring and other items, Aguilar recalled. At one point, he grabbed a knife and then a gun because, he said, he wanted to “irritate” and “scare” Jacky. According to evidence presented in the preliminary hearing, Aguilar and his girlfriend had been “trying to make each other angry” when Aguilar took ammunition and a 9mm gun from his father’s room and then drove to the Black Hill area in his truck with Jacky.
Jacky’s friend, McKall Taylor, went looking for her that night and found her. But after Aguilar shot Jacky in the leg, he began shooting at Taylor, who had no choice but to run to her car to get away. Her car was hit multiple times by bullets. Aguilar then shot Jacky a second time as she lay on the ground and Taylor drove away.
On Tuesday, Taylor’s mother, Lori Taylor, read a statement to the board on her daughter’s behalf.
“My innocence and freedom was taken from me,” she said.
McKall Taylor says the “horrifying events of that night will forever play in my head,” and the sounds of Jacky screaming and the gunshots as well as the sight of Jacky falling to the ground, will never go away.
“Francisco is a murderer who has zero remorse,” her letter states.
Likewise, Rosa Nunez told the board that for her and her family, “nothing in our world has felt safe since” that night as they all “continue to relive this horrific moment.”
After shooting Jacky and driving off, Aguilar says he called his father and “told him I was sorry for not being better, for not making good choices, I told him that I loved him. I was just planning on probably shooting myself, too.”
His father told him that although what he did wasn’t right, “he’d rather see me behind bars than in a casket,” and then told his son to “be a man about it. … This is where you have to change.”
Aguilar was arrested after his tires were spiked by police.
“An apology won’t fix what I did. I’ll never be able to fix what I did. But I want to say I’m sorry,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t even know how to fix what I did. I’m hoping I’m on the right track now.”
Johnson noted that Aguilar has done well during his short time being incarcerated. But that doesn’t change the fact “the crime was horrific,” he said.
The full five-member board will now take a vote. The board could decide to schedule another parole hearing for sometime in the future or could order that Aguilar serve his entire life sentence. But even if that were to happen, Johnson says Aguilar could petition every so often for a redetermination hearing.
The board’s decision is expected in several weeks.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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