They thrashed them. Clobbered 'em. Walloped the poor fellas into next Thursday.
Pulverized and pummeled the sorry souls.
A devastating vaporization. A belligerent beatdown -- and an intra-Division-I record.
Friday night in Salt Lake City, the (unranked) Utah Utes were entirely disrespectful to the visiting Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils, so much so that the final score of 143-49 gave men's Division I college basketball its largest margin of victory/defeat in its 100-plus-year history. The key distinction being that such a record is held within the confines of D-I; there have been bigger beatdowns, but the losing team has been outside the D-I infrastructure.
The 94-point differential is absurd when you really think about it. There will be so many teams -- maybe even more than 100 -- that fail to even score 94 themselves in a game this season, let alone come close to winning by that much.
If you're curious on the all-time record for margin of victory, well it's one that will never be broken: In the 1917-18 season, Georgia beat Southeastern Christian by 120 points (122-2!).
The Utes had nine players in double figures, including all its starters. The leading scorer: Timmy Allen with 26 on 9-of-11 shooting. The Utes were 50% from 3 (17 for 34) and were a dreamy 40 for 56 from 2-point range. That's 71.4%. Rebound margin is an overrated and outdated stat, but when you win the battle on the boards 68-28, the dominance is obvious. That's what Utah did to the Delta Devils, who alas rated as the worst team in college basketball heading into the season in my 1-353 rankings.
Utah's 143 points vs. a D-I team are the most in the sport since Butler plunked 144 on The Citadel's head to open the 2015-16 season. Quite the stark contrast from Syracuse being held to its lowest point total in 74 years.
