Friday night boys hoops observations

The atmosphere at Brighton was fantastic on Friday night, it felt like a playoff game. In all my years of covering games I don’t ever remember Brighton’s student body being such good fans. Kudos to them. They created a hostile environment that Bingham struggled with in the fourth quarter as Brighton pulled away 63-61.

Brighton didn’t shoot well the entire game, and only started to knock down shots late in the third quarter. Their defense and tenacity kept the Bengals in the game. Bingham looked poised to capitalize on the struggles with its six straight win, but the Miners buckled late.

Here are some other observations from Friday night’s slate of boys basketball games:

119 points? Are you serious? Morgan beat North Summit 119-86 on Friday night. I can’t remember a team scoring that many points in all my years covering high school basketball. Casey Evans scored 46 points as the Trojans made 46 field goals. In the loss, the Braves were led by Makay Fristrup’s 30 points and nine 3-pointers.
OK, is there anybody not back on the Lone Peak bandwagon? The Knights beat Lone Peak 79-38 on Friday night. Two nights earlier it beat Cottonwood by 32 points. It’s safe to say that Lone Peak’s surprising 64-53 loss to Viewmont last week is a distant memory.
There’s still a lot of basketball to be played, but Layton is looking like a potential sleeper after its 61-59 victory over Fremont.
Monticello continues to plow through 1A with a 49-34 victory over Duchesne.
Everyone knew Wasatch Academy was going to be one of the best teams in 1A this season, but it looks even better than advertised after an 82-43 win over Panguitch.
Riverton continues to win basketball games. On Tuesday it beat Brighton, on Wednesday it beat Skyline and on Friday it beat Pleasant Grove 47-38 to improve to 6-0.
The bad luck continued for Judge Friday night, while the coaches son came through big for Bountiful. John Maxwell hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer as the Braves beat Judge 65-63 to improve to 5-1. For Judge, the loss was its fourth of the season. The margin of victory in those losses were 1, 3, 2 and 2.
On Thursday East stunned West 73-71 in overtime. On Friday night it beat Park City 60-54. It makes you wonder how the up-start Leopards lost to Murray on Tuesday 70-47. The coming weeks will reveal a lot.
Is it too early to start looking forward to Lone Peak at American Fork on Jan. 14. Just as Lone Peak thrashed an opponent by 30 points on Friday, so did the No. 1 Cavemen with a 61-31 win over Timpanogos.
Alta knocked down 13 3-pointers in a 65-52 victory at Shrewsbury, Mass. on Friday. It was a nice bounce-back win by the Hawks after a loss on Thursday night at Central Catholic, Mass., 54-41.

What happened at your game on Friday night?