Tuesday night boys hoops observations

Defending 5A state champion West Jordan knew its Region 3 title aspirations hinged on home games this week against Copper Hills and Bingham. Neither would be easy, but the Jags knew they needed to win at least one of the two, which they care of Tuesday night by beating Copper Hills 60-49.

Copper Hills didn’t do itself any favors by missing nine straight free throws at one point in the game, and making just 4 of 15 in the second half.

Now West Jordan can turns its attention to Bingham, and it should be able to play much more relaxed knowing it took care of business against Copper Hills.

Other observations from Tuesday’s night’s slate:

It’s obvious that Fremont and Davis are going to run away with the top two seeds from Region 1, but after that it’s anyone’s guess. Viewmont raced to a 15-point halftime lead on Layton and ultimately prevailed 57-50 to improve to 4-3 in league play and move into a three-way tie for third with Layton and Syracuse. Weber and Northridge are one game behind at 3-4.

Sophomore Jaden Jackson scored 24 points as Skyline picked up a big 55-50 victory over Murray. The Spartans missed out on a chance to keep pace with region front-runner West heading into their game on Friday night.

A week after nearly falling to East, Olympus took care of business very quickly in Tooele jumping out to a 18-4 first quarter lead en route to an easy 73-51 win over the Buffaloes.

Kudos to Orem for keeping it close against Provo, even though the Tigers lost 44-39. In the next two weeks Orem has games against Timpview and Lehi, and those outcomes will determine where Orem is good enough to break into the top three in Region 7.

Wasatch should easily run the tables in Region 10, as evidence by its 63-28 win over Union. The only drama will come in the race for second and Park City picked up a huge 51-49 win over Carbon to aid its cause. Jon Schettler drilled a game-tying 3-pointer for Park City with 20 seconds remaining in regulation, and after a defensive stop, Sam Sisk connected on a game-winning layup with less than a second to go to propel the Miners.

What happened at your game on Tuesday night?