Utes fail in three key areas in Wednesday loss

Last night’s loss to a depleted TCU team in Fort Worth, dropped the Utah basketball team into a tie with Air Force and TCU at 6-7 in the MWC standings. The defeat hurts the Utes’ hopes to finish in fifth place and avoid a first-round matchup with hometown UNLV in the MWC tournament, but it also leaves them vulnerable to the dreaded play-in game.
With Wyoming’s win at Colorado State, the Cowboys are within striking distance of the Utes as well as the other two. If the Cowboys defeat Utah Saturday and win at BYU the following week, they can tie any of the other three if they lose out. In Utah’s case, Wyoming would own the tiebreaker if it finished in a tie at 6-10.
That isn’t likely to happen since the Utes still have a home game against winless Colorado State next week, but the Utes have proven they can beat anyone and lose to anyone in the league.
Yesterday we said the Utes needed to do three key things to come away with a victory — to play better defense, to keep the Frogs off the offensive glass and to hit their fre throws in the clutch.
You could say the Utes failed on all three counts.
Better defense is hard to measure, but one of Jim Boylen’s biggest complaints afterward was the Utes’ “one-on-one defense.” He particularly wasn’t happy about his center Luke Nevill getting scored on by both Kevin Langford (16 points) and Alvardo Parker (14 points).
The Utes actually outrebounded the smaller Horned Frogs 34-30, but they gave up 9 offensive boards, which was fewer than the 13 they allowed in the game in Salt Lake, but too many to pull out a win.
As far as free throws in the clutch, the Utes failed miserably. Until the final six minutes, the Utes had made all 9 of their free throws. But beginning with Nevill’s miss on the front end of a 1-and-1, the Utes missed four free throws, including one by Johnnie Bryant, who had missed just two foul shots all season.
When Boylen was reminded that the Utes were first in the MWC in free throw percentage and 18th in the nation, he suggested that the Utes are probably last in the nation in free throws percentage over the final six minutes.