SALT LAKE CITY — It’s not like Cal was a great offensive team or anything, but the Utah basketball team had to be pleased with its defensive numbers in a comfortable 60-45 victory Saturday night at the Huntsman Center.
Not only did they hold the Bears to the fewest points among all their opponents this year, the Utes held them to 32% shooting, came up with 10 steals and a number not on the stat sheet that coach Larry Krystkowiak revealed after the game — 21 deflections.
“Our bigs did a really good job and our guards were solid too. We had very few breakdowns.” — Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak
“I thought we made strides defensively,” Krystkowiak said. “We had a good week of practice, had a good game plan for both of the Bay Area schools and we made good strides in our pick-and-roll coverage. That’s what we focused on this week. Our bigs did a really good job and our guards were solid too. We had very few breakdowns.”
The Utes, who improved to 14-9 and 5-6 in Pac-12 play, were mostly concerned about Matt Bradley, who came in averaging 17 points per game, and point guard Paris Austin. Bradley ended up scoring four below his average on 5 of 13 from the field, while Austin scored all five of his points in a one-minute span early in the first half and nothing the rest of the night.
Utah’s Timmy Allen, who broke out of a shooting slump with 21 points on 8 of 16 from the field, hounded Bradley for much of the night and had fun doing it.
“Our main objective was to stop Bradley and No. 3 (Austin),” he said. “I’ve dated back to AAU and high school playing against Matt Bradley and it’s a great challenge. He gave me 30 or 40 in high school, so it felt good to take a stand tonight. I like to guard, so it’s always fun.”
The Utes were coming off an exhilarating overtime win over a 16-5 Stanford team Thursday night and determined not to overlook a Cal squad that had taken Colorado, a team the Utes lost to by 39, to the wire Thursday in a six-point loss.
Like they did against Stanford, the Utes jumped to an early double-digit lead of 17-6 and like they did the other night, they suffered through some poor offensive stretches.
They had taken a 12-point halftime lead, only to come out and misfire on their first six possessions of the second half, and failed to score for nearly five minutes. But Allen got the Utes going with a driving basket and later scored 10 straight Utah points when they pushed the lead to 19.
No one else scored in double figures, but the Utes had a nice game off the bench by Alfonso Plummer, who scored eight points on 4 of 7 from the field. Rylan Jones handed out six assists and made two steals and Riley Battin had eight rebounds and seven points.
As good as the Utah defense was Saturday, the offense was still a bit out of kilter as the Utes had trouble scoring.
“Our offense needs to improve,” Krystkowiak said, “We’ve kind of grinded a little bit recently and thank goodness the defense has kept us in some ball games.”
The good news was that the Utes cut their turnovers in half from Thursday night with just nine on the night.
“We took care of the ball for the most part, which was important for us. Our goal was to have less than 10,” said Krystkowiak. “When you’re turning it over 18 times like the other night, it puts a lot of heat on you. It’s super important for us not to have those turnovers.”
Now the Utes head back out on the road, looking for their first road victory in Pac-12 play when they take on Oregon State Thursday night and Oregon Sunday night.
UTE NOTES: Chris Hill, who was the athletics director for 31 years before retiring two years ago, was honored with video tributes throughout the game. At halftime he was presented with a framed No. 31 jersey and a banner with his name and the number 31 was unveiled on the east side of the arena . . . Krystkowiak was celebrating his 23rd wedding anniversary with his wife, Jan, or as he put it, 8,395 days . . . The Utes will play Cal again in three weeks, on Feb. 29 at Haas Pavilion.