Long stretches without making a field goal, no Gabe Madsen after the first few minutes of the game, a rough night for best player Branden Carlson against a Pac-12 opponent that has a mastery over the Runnin’ Utes like no other.
Add it all up, and it was an entirely forgettable night for Utah in the Pacific Northwest, as the Oregon Ducks rolled to a 68-56 win over the cold-shooting Utes in front of an announced crowd of 8,228 at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Oregon.
“Certainly, we wanted to win this thing like crazy, but we didn’t, obviously. There was some good that came out of this, but we obviously have to get better and be better against these types of teams. It is not rocket science.” — Utah coach Craig Smith.
It was the Ducks’ 11th-straight win over Utah, and the home team improved to 23-2 in Pac-12 games against the Utes, who saw their three-game winning streak snapped.
“Certainly, we wanted to win this thing like crazy, but we didn’t, obviously,” coach Craig Smith told ESPN 700 radio. “There was some good that came out of this, but we obviously have to get better and be better against these types of teams. It is not rocket science. We have struggled against these types of teams this season, at times.”
So the Utes (8-4, 15-8) lost a great opportunity to get a Quadrant 1 win and make a statement to the rest of the league that they are for real. They will host Stanford, California and Colorado over the course of the next two weeks, then get another shot at a Quad 1 win on Feb. 16 when they travel to top 10 Arizona.
In the meantime, their focus will shift to Madsen’s health. Their second-leading scorer left the game early with a lower leg injury, and without him the offense went kaput.
Smith had “nothing concrete” regarding Madsen’s prognosis when he spoke to Bill Riley after the game, saying only that it was a lower leg injury and the sophomore “seemed to be doing fine in the locker room” after the game.
Having led wire-to-wire in their last three games, wins over Washington State, Washington and Oregon State, the Utes actually got off to a decent start, and had an 11-9 lead when Lazar Stefanovic banked in a 3-pointer. Stefanovic led the Utes with 14 points on 5 of 13 shooting, including 4 of 8 from 3-point range.
However, that was as good as it got for the Utes — save a late spurt when they put together an 8-0 run to trim Oregon’s big lead to eight points with 1:31 left in the contest.
Utah had nine-plus minute droughts without making a field goal in both halves.
“We had those two droughts, and those are long droughts. It is one thing to have droughts, but when you have those kind of droughts, it just puts so much pressure on your defense,” Smith said. “You just feel like you gotta play perfect. We gotta be able to be better.”
Carlson added 13 points for the Utes, but this wasn’t one of the 7-footer’s better games, as he struggled against Oregon’s size and athleticism. He went 9 of 10 from the free-throw line, but was just 2 of 14 from the field, with eight rebounds.
The Utes’ shot selection wasn’t all that bad. It was just one of those nights, compounded by the absence of Madsen the final 38 or so minutes.
“We were 8 of 34 on 2-point shots,” Smith said. “I thought we missed a lot of clean looks early. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily hero ball, or bad shots. In fact, I thought we passed up some clean looks in the first half.”
Oregon got a big 3-pointer from Will Richardson right before halftime to take a 36-25 lead at the break, and extended that advantage to as many as 16 points in the second half before Eli Ballstaedt came off the bench to lead a late mini-run.
But it was too little, too late, and the Utes finished shooting 28% from the field. Only 16 of 19 free-throw shooting kept them from losing by more after falling 70-60 to the Ducks three weeks ago at the Huntsman Center.
“We struggle with teams like this that are super long and have elite rim protection,” Smith said. “They just get us sped up.”
Oregon outscored Utah 32-14 in the paint, which was another big factor on a night when both teams made eight 3-pointers.
Jermaine Couisnard led all scorers with 18 points, and N’Faly Dante had nine after not playing in Oregon’s 75-69 win over Colorado on Thursday.
“We had 13 offensive boards, but there were a lot of offensive boards to get,” Smith said.
Another bright spot was that the Utes took care of the ball, committing only six turnovers.
Utah’s defensive play has been its strength, and in that regard the Utes were just average Saturday, by their standards. Oregon shot 47%, three percentage points higher than its season average.
“We weren’t what we needed to be defensively, but certainly offense was the difference tonight, and not being able to make some shots and then just being a little semi out of control,” Smith said. “We gotta play better and have more points when we get the ball into the pain and understand what they are trying to do.”