Throughout their years playing basketball in the Pac-12, the Utes have almost always found visits from the Bay Area teams to be a nice little remedy for whatever ails them.
That proved true again Thursday afternoon, as Utah snapped its four-game losing skid with an emphatic 79-65 win at the Huntsman Center over a Stanford team that had more rest and was on a nice little roll, having won three straight. The Cardinal was perching itself on the NCAA Tournament bubble.
“I am not some kind of fortune teller that’s going to (predict that). I have been around long enough to know that it can (turn around). You earn what you get, you get what you earn. … I am not going to sit up here and go, ‘oh yeah, this thing (is changing).’ Talk is all cheap. We have to bring it, bring the effort, keep chopping wood and stay after it. And then hopefully we can get on a little bit of a run of some kind.” — Utah basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak
The confidence-building win was just what the Utes (5-5, 2-4 Pac-12) needed, because their own postseason hopes seemed to be fading before the mild upset.
“In sports, the victories are medicine,” said coach Larry Krystkowiak. “It is good medicine, and I couldn’t be more happy and proud of our guys for all their work. … We needed a little bit of feel-good, so I am just thrilled for the entire program.”
Another strong dosage could be on the way.
The Utes play host to struggling Cal (6-8, 1-6) Saturday looking for their sixth straight home sweep of the Bay Area teams since the 2014-15 season. The Bears haven’t won in Salt Lake City since taking a 62-57 victory on Jan. 24, 2013.
After scoring 22 points in the romp over Stanford, Utes forward Timmy Allen said they can’t look past the Bears as they wrap up a tough four-games-in-eight-days stretch at home.
“I am happy with the win, but we still have a lot of film to watch,” Allen said. “We gotta get better Saturday. We can’t take them lightly, so it is a ‘on-to-the-next-one’ mindset. We gotta keep it up.”
Tipoff is at 8 p.m. MST on ESPNU and Bill Walton will be the color analyst on the broadcast.
Allen called the Stanford win “a good starting point for us” to turn the season around, and he’s got a good chance of being prophetic. Utah hits the road after Saturday’s 34th meeting with Cal with a couple winnable games on the horizon.
The Utes are at Washington State (9-3, 2-3) Thursday and last-place Washington (1-10, 0-6) Jan. 24 before another rivalry showdown with Colorado on Jan. 30 in Boulder. Of course, in this pandemic-altered season, the schedule could be changed at a moment’s notice, perhaps a middle-of-the-week game before the rematch with the Buffaloes.
One has to wonder if the Utes’ season would be going differently had they played at so-so Arizona State (4-5) on Dec. 22 or at home against Oregon State (5-5) on Jan. 6. Those contests were postponed due to COVID-19 issues, and brought about the Colorado game last Monday that the Utes lost, 65-58, to tumble in the league standings.
“Like I have said, I still believe,” Allen said after the Utes outrebounded Stanford by 11 and outscored the bigger Cardinal 34-18 in the paint. “I think we got something going. We just gotta get all the pieces in order. (Others) can believe or not, but we are going to keep sticking to the same code and keep plugging along. … Looking forward to carrying it into Saturday.”
Cal should be expected to play along.
The Bears will likely be without their best player, guard Matt Bradley, who played his senior season of high school basketball at Wasatch Academy in Mount Pleasant for coach Curtis Condie.
An All-Pac-12 second teamer last year after averaging 17.5 points per game, Bradley sustained a left ankle injury against Oregon State on Jan. 2 and hasn’t played since.
The Bears got their first Pac-12 win last Saturday, beating woeful Washington 84-78 in Berkeley, but were hammered 89-60 by Colorado Thursday afternoon.
Forward Andre Kelly had 16 points, while graduate student guards Makale Foreman had 13 and Ryan Betley 12.
Will the Bears be just what the doctor ordered for a Utah team seemingly poised to make a nice turnaround?
“I am not some kind of fortune teller that’s going to (predict that),” Krystkowiak said. “I have been around long enough to know that it can. You earn what you get, you get what you earn. … I am not going to sit up here and go, ‘Oh yeah, this thing (is changing).’ Talk is all cheap. We have to bring it, bring the effort, keep chopping wood and stay after it. And then hopefully we can get on a little bit of a run of some kind.”
And bring more feel-good to a program that hasn’t had a lot in 2021. Until the Bay Area teams made their annual visit.