Utah Tech redshirt sophomore Chance Trujillo started a fight during the college basketball game against Santa Clara on Monday night. He responded to a vicious poster dunk with a sucker punch.
It was a humiliating sequence of events for the Trailblazers.
There are going to be embarrassing moments in college basketball where you end up on the wrong side of a big play. You have to be able to keep it together. You cannot throw hands because you’re butthurt.
Santa Clara dominated Utah Tech.
Don’t look now but the Broncos are one of the best mid-major teams in the country. Santa Clara has wins over McNeese State, Minnesota (which beat No. 22 Indiana), and Xavier with only one fluke loss to Saint Louis by one point last week. It will play two quality opponents in New Mexico and Arizona State this weekend before conference play gets underway. There is real March Madness potential in the Mission City!
On the flip side of that equation, Utah Tech dropped to 5-6 on Tuesday. The Blazers have not showed a lot of life during the early season and the 10-point loss to the Broncos was another struggle. They actually out-shot their opponent at 49.2% but they committed 21 turnovers with less offensive rebounds.
That ultimately proved to be the difference.
To make matters worse, Chance Trujillo lost his cool during the closing moments of the game. It was a stain on a frustrating loss.
Chance Trujillo threw a punch and started a fight after a poster dunk.
The unfortunate sequence of events took place with just under 90 seconds left in the second half. Santa Clara forward Allen Graves dunked all over Trujillo at 6-foot-9, 225 pounds.
He threw down an absolute hammer and put the 6-foot-4, 200-pound redshirt sophomore on a poster.
Not only did Graves embarrass the Snow College and Weber State transfer with his dunk, he stayed in Chance Trujillo’s ear on their way back up the court. The latter started to walk away but the former continued to talk trash and bumped him from behind.
That prompted Trujillo to rear back and throw a punch to Graves’ head. Graves was obviously furious.
Fortunately, multiple Broncos teammates immediately stepped in to pull him away from the situation. Officials also stepped in to prevent further escalation. They were able to separate the two.
Santa Clara's Allen Graves dunked on a Utah Tech player so hard that the dude turned around and punched him in the face pic.twitter.com/mLrmb8Pnji
— Phil Mayer (@mayer_philip) December 4, 2025
Both players received technical foul but neither player was ejected. Graves later checked back in. Trujillo spent the rest of the game on the bench. Even though Graves appeared to be the instigator, Trujillo let his embarrassment get the best of him and that cannot happen. He lost his cool and that’s not cool.