The Wolverines stalemated visiting Cal Baptist throughout Thursday’s matchup with tremendous defensive pressure on their way to a resounding 65-46 win. The win vaults Phillips’ team into first place in the conference standings with the postseason tournament closing in fast.

“This was a big time win tonight for us (against) a really, really good team,” Phillips said. “It’s just a bloodbath every game between us and Cal Baptist…But I’m really proud of our guys tonight and I think it was one of our best defensive performances of the year.”

Altogether UVU tallied 15 steals as a team, forcing 20 overall turnovers from the Lancers while recording 10 blocked shots. Phillips’ team didn’t change its approach on the defensive end, and didn’t employ any full-court pressure, but instead simply proved fundamentally sound throughout.

All of it led to yielding just 22 points scored by Cal Baptist in the first half with UVU taking a seven point lead into the break.

The defensive pressure only got better from there, with UVU holding the Lancers to just five points scored over the second half’s first ten minutes to push the lead to 49-27 and take total command of the play.

“Defense was very important tonight and I think that it’s going to be important for the rest of the way,” said Utah Valley guard Trevan Leonhardt. “When we win, we’re good defensively, and when we don’t win it’s when we’re not very good defensively.”

As mentioned, none of it came from issuing much different than the defensive framework Phillips preaches year-in and year-out.

“We’re not a big deny team. We like to keep (everything) in front (of us),” Phillips described. “So tonight I think we really called out their plays and we were really dialed into what we were trying to do…Because we play two bigs we’re pretty physical (inside)…and then we have some really good guards with length. We turned them over and we did a good job with that without really pressuring.”

As for the so-called ‘bigs’, they were tremendous throughout the win. Leading the way was starting center Isaac Davis who finished with a team-high 14 points, four rebounds and three steals while Isaac Hawkins added 10 points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots with Hayden Welling chipping in three blocked shots of his own.

As for the guards, it was was once again Leonhardt managing most of everything from his point guard position while using his superior 6-foot-5 frame to frustrate Cal Baptist’s Dominique Daniels to just 3-16 shooting from the field and 12 overall points, which was well below his 22 points average on the season. The Davis High School product also dished out eight assists and finished with eight points.

“What Trevan does is everything,” Phillips said. “He’s one of the best assist guys in the country, but then he’ll have five or six rebounds. He gets big rebounds for us, he gets his hands on balls, and his size…he has great length and great feel for where he needs to pass that ball…He did a great job tonight and he’s been super consistent all year long.”

The win over Cal Baptist places the Wolverines one game clear of it in the standings, and due to Utah Tech losing on Thursday night to UT Arlington, they now control their own destiny for the remaining five games of the regular season.

“I told my guys congratulations on the win, and that (they) now control their own destiny, but now we have five really tough games to finish out the season,” Phillips said. “We have to get ready to go, but I’m really proud of our guys tonight.”

Of course UVU’s presence in the postseason may be in jeopardy due to withholding the $1 million exit fee the WAC Conference is demanding in light of the Wolverines joining the Big Sky Conference next season. Court hearings have been scheduled in order for UVU to be granted an injunction and thereby participate in the WAC postseason tournament, although Phillips and his team aren’t focused on any of it.

“We do what we can do. We control our own destiny and win games, win conference championships and let the administration take care of all the other stuff,” Phillips said. “It’s not even a conversation we have. They’ll take care of this, get this done, and I have every confidence in the world in them.”