Injuries and player absences are never a good thing, but this juncture of the season is probably better than most for the Runnin’ Utes to be a bit shorthanded.
Coming off a road split against the Oregon schools, Utah is girding up for a three-game homestand, beginning Thursday (6 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Networks) when Stanford rolls into the Huntsman Center. Cal visits on Sunday, then Utah doesn’t play again until Feb. 11 against Colorado.
“We have a good group. Sometimes you can get too high, and sometimes you can get too low. Usually things aren’t as great as they seem, or as bad as they seem.” — Utah coach Craig Smith
All three are very winnable games, and if the Utes (15-8, 8-4) take care of business at home, they will be near the top of the Pac-12 standings and ready to attack a gauntlet of contests against the top teams in the league: Arizona, Arizona State, UCLA and USC, the first two on the road at Tucson and Tempe.
Of course, the Utes could be without one of their top players. Sophomore guard Gabe Madsen sustained a lower leg injury early in last Saturday’s 68-56 loss at Oregon and his status for the Stanford (9-12, 3-7) game remained unclear as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, a Utah basketball spokesperson said.
Utah coach Craig Smith said at his weekly press briefing Tuesday that the Utes’ second-leading scorer (11.7 ppg.) underwent some “tests” Monday and was going to do some “follow-up things” with athletic training director Trevor Jameson on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“And hopefully we will know more at that point,” Smith concluded.
Smith said if Madsen can’t go, fellow guard Lazar Stefanovic will get his seventh start and will be asked to take on a larger role, although Stefanovic already averages 25.6 minutes per game. The sophomore from Serbia is Utah’s fourth-leading scorer (9.7 ppg.) and is second on the team in assists, with 54.
“The good news for us is (Stefanovic) is a veteran guy,” Smith said. “The amount of minutes he has played for being a sophomore is like a junior at the same stage, I would say. So he’s been there, done that. It puts more of a load on (not only) him, but everybody.”
Smith said freshman Wilguens Exacte “is going to have to play more,” along with perhaps seniors Bostyn Holt, Jaxon Brenchley and Eli Ballstaedt, or freshman Luka Tarlac.
Ballstaedt hit a late 3-pointer against Oregon and Smith said on his postgame radio appearance that the walk-on from Midway and Wasatch High is the second-best shooter on the team, behind Madsen.
Smith said Madsen, who appeared to sustain a knee injury just two minutes, seven seconds into the Ducks game, is a “big cog” in Utah’s offense and has developed into more of an all-around player in his second year with the Utes after transferring from Cincinnati.
“Certainly losing a guy like that doesn’t help the equation, but it has gotta be a next-man-up mentality and we gotta look at it like we do a lot of things on offense and just really kind of refine who we think we are if he doesn’t play,” Smith said.
Only Arizona’s Kerr Kriisa has attempted more 3-pointers than Madsen, who has fired up 150 and made 56, in the Pac-12.
The Utes dropped to fourth place in the Pac-12 standings with the Oregon loss, but are only two games (in the loss column) behind first-place UCLA (17-4, 8-2) and in a much better spot than almost anyone predicted they’d be heading into February.
Smith said the message to his team as the calendar turns to the final month of the regular season is to stay locked in and remain focused on the present.
“We have a good group. Sometimes you can get too high, and sometimes you can get too low. Usually things aren’t as great as they seem, or as bad as they seem,” he said. “Obviously we went on the road and got a split. You always want to sweep. But, I mean, everything we want is right in front of us.”
The Utes are in the low 50s in the NET rankings and slightly on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble, and don’t figure to get much of a bump this week with wins over Stanford (No. 119) and Cal (No. 296). But there will be plenty of opportunities for Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins in the future, beginning a week from Saturday when Colorado (No. 70) visits.
“Yeah, I think everything is in play for us,” Smith said. “If you look at the way the schedule sets up for us, in a lot of ways it is perfect. At the end of the day, if you are good enough you make it, and if you are not good enough, you don’t.
“And that is the beauty of it, is now we have a three-game homestand. … Then we go up against some really good teams. And so if you can beat those teams, you are going to jump the standings, so to speak.”
