When Utah was enduring a 10-game losing streak in the Pac-12 at this time a year ago, and winning just four league contests, any suggestion that in Year Two of the Craig Smith era that things would be entirely different would have been met with giggles and guffaws.
But just look at these Runnin’ Utes now.
Smith’s gritty and connected crew moved into sole possession of third place in the league Saturday night, rolling past supposed Rocky Mountain rival Colorado 73-62 in front of an announced crowd of 6,133 at the Huntsman Center.
“We took a couple of days off and I thought we got our legs back and just kind of were able to mentally recharge a little bit. We had a great look to us all week.” — Utah basketball coach Craig Smith
Coming off a midweek bye, and playing their third game without second-leading scorer Gabe Madsen (high ankle sprain), the Utes looked rested, refreshed and ready to make a nice little late-season run. They jumped out to a 7-0 lead, saw Colorado rally back to tie it at 7-7, and then regained control and led by as many as 18 points in grabbing their 10th Pac-12 win, against five losses.
It’s the biggest turnaround in conference wins for the program since the Utes went from eight wins in 1993-94 to 15 wins in 1994-95, and Utah still has five league games left.
In short, what’s happening on the Hill is quite remarkable, given the state of the program when Smith took over two years ago, and what happened last year. Only nationally ranked UCLA (12-2) and Arizona (11-4) are ahead of the Utes in the conference standings.
“First of all, it was a great win for the Runnin’ Utes. I thought we played a really good basketball game most of the night,” Smith said. “I would like to finish the game off better, but I thought we had a great mindset the whole way.”
Utah led 62-44 with eight minutes remaining, but Colorado (14-12, 6-9) refused to wilt, battling to the bitter end. But the outcome was never really in doubt, as Utah won its second straight game and geared up for next week’s crucial games at Arizona and Arizona State.
The win probably assured Utah an NIT bid, but obviously this team wants more. Barring a complete collapse, it should finish in the top half of the league. What’s more, it is setting up well to get a top four seed for the conference tournament, and the first-round bye that comes with that.
“We took a couple of days off and I thought we got our legs back and just kind of were able to mentally recharge a little bit,” Smith said, noting that they didn’t practice Monday or Wednesday. “We had a great look to us all week.”
Utah’s usual suspects led the way, as senior center Branden Carlson and fifth-year wing Marco Anthony notched 17 points apiece. Anthony added eight rebounds, while Ben Carlson chipped in 10 points and eight boards in one of the Wisconsin transfer’s best games as a Ute.
“We knew we had to come out ready to go and that the first five minutes of the first half were big,” Branden Carlson said. “I think we did a great job of executing on the defensive end in getting stops. I think for the most part of the second half we did a great job until those last three or four minutes.”
Carlson blocked three shots, but the defensive stars for the Utes were Anthony and point guard Rollie Worster, who still found time to chip in seven points, six rebounds and six assists before fouling out with less than a minute remaining.
Anthony drew the defensive assignment of guarding CU forward Tristan da Silva, who entered the game averaging better than 25 points a game his past five games. With Anthony hounding him all night, he had just six points on 3 of 12 shooting.
“I just knew I had to bring my ‘A’ game on the defensive end, especially, and I was able to do what I did and that ended up helping us win this game,” Anthony said.
Said Smith: “To hold da Silva to six points on the tear he’s been on was outstanding.”
Worster guarded CU’s other top scorer, KJ Simpson, and forced the guard into 5 of 13 shooting, for 14 points.
Colorado was held to 37% shooting and was just 4 of 18 from 3-point range.
“You know we are trying to, I wouldn’t say reinvent ourselves, but when you lose a guy like Madsen, things change, and you become a different team,” Smith said. “We worked a lot on specifically some of the things we needed to do offensively, and then just getting back to who we are defensively.”
About the only downer for the Utes was they committed 13 turnovers — which Colorado turned into 12 points. They offset that by shooting 49% from the field and winning the rebounding battle 41-29.
Colorado’s bench outscored Utah’s bench 31-13, but that’s not as bad as it sounds for the Utes.
They got 13 combined points from Wilguens Exacte (five) and Keba Keita (eight) as the freshmen combined for 22 solid minutes. Keita also had five rebounds.
“I thought Keba was tremendous tonight and I thought Wil was very, very good tonight,” Smith said. “And those two guys strung together their best week of practice in quite some time.”
Colorado had no answer for Utah’s bigs, especially after 7-footer Lawson Lovering, the only true five on CU’s roster, was saddled with foul trouble. The highlight of the game was Carlson taking a pass from Exacte and flushing home a running, two-handed dunk with 10:52 left in the first half to give the Utes a 21-10 lead.
“I think we definitely needed this bye week. It gave us plenty of time to prepare,” Carlson said. “Just the whole team, we had a great look to us in practice. Having this bye week rejuvenated us and I think we took advantage of it for sure and obviously we got the win tonight so it was a good thing for us.”
Madsen sustained his injury two weeks ago, and then was said to be out 4-6 weeks the middle of last week. He got out of the protective boot on his right foot on Thursday, Smith said, and was helping out in pregame warmups without a visible limp.
Smith said the sophomore from Minnesota will undergo more testing this week, but noted there is no change to the original timetable presented to him by the team doctors.
“Losing Gabe definitely hurts. He is not only one of the best shooters on our team, but one of the best shooters in the country,” Anthony said. “But it is always a ‘next man up’ mentality for us and I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job on doing that.”
The Utes will play at No. 4 Arizona on Thursday; the Wildcats were upset 88-79 by Stanford on Saturday.