Will the ‘unlucky’ Cougars ever win a close game in coach Kevin Young’s first season?

College basketball analytics guru Ken Pomeroy, a Salt Lake City resident, has a feature on his Kenpom.com website he calls the “Luck Rating.”

Basically, it is just what you would think it is. It tries to answer the question: Which are the luckiest, and unluckiest, teams in major college basketball?

In Pomeroy’s words, it is “a measure of the deviation between a team’s actual winning percentage and what one would expect from its game-by-game efficiencies.”

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After another heartbreaking loss Saturday night to rival Utah in a season full of them, BYU’s Luck Rating is 308th in the country, out of 360 teams.

That’s not good.

The 73-72 overtime loss in front of 15,558 at the Huntsman Center — Utah’s previous attendance high this season was 7,922 — dropped the Cougars’ record to 11-6 overall, 2-4 in the Big 12, and was another reminder of perhaps BYU’s biggest problem in coach Kevin Young’s first season: a failure to finish.

Call it being unlucky, unfortunate or just plain unable to close out opponents, the Cougars are now 0-4 in games decided by 5 points or fewer.

They are 0-2 in overtime games, having lost 96-85 to No. 21 Ole Miss on a neutral court in San Diego on Thanksgiving Day. BYU had a 75-71 lead and the ball with less than two minutes to play in regulation in that one, then fell apart on both sides of the court.

Against the improving Utes (11-6, 3-3) on Saturday, Mawot Mag hit a 3-pointer with 51 seconds left to give the Cougars a 62-61 lead.

But after a timeout, Utah’s Ezra Ausar got free for a dunk — credit guard Gabe Madsen, who otherwise had an awful night, for finding the East Carolina transfer open near the hoop — and the Utes regained the lead.

After BYU’s Keba Keita, the transfer from Utah, of all places, missed a runner in the lane, Ausar made a free throw. Then BYU’s Fouss Traore made a rebound basket to knot it at 64-64 and send it into overtime.

So it isn’t like the Cougars completely fizzled at the end of regulation. And in overtime, BYU made three field goals, to Utah’s two.

Speaking of which, there have been 17 overtime games in the historic BYU-Utah basketball rivalry. Utah has won 13 of them.

“We gotta learn how to win close games. We are right there in all these games and we’ve had a chance to win,” Young said. “I just told our club in there (the BYU locker room) that you win and lose close games on the margins. We have come up short too many times, and that’s disappointing.”

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Time is running out on BYU’s NCAA Tournament hopes

BYU’s NET ranking dropped from 45 to 46 as it squandered the opportunity to get a Quad 1 win, as Utah’s NET ranking is now 70. BYU’s Kenpom ranking is 45, while Utah’s is 73.

This was a win the Cougars desperately needed, and not just because it was against a bitter rival.

After Tuesday’s game at Colorado (9-8, 0-6) and Saturday’s game at home against Cincinnati, the road gets even harder.

After BYU hosts Cincy, five of its next five games, and 10 of its next 11, will be Quad 1 games — if the current ratings hold steady.

“Everyone is mad. Everyone is disappointed. Big game. Rivalry game. You wanted to win it. Everyone is disappointed and we gotta bounce back,” Young said, when asked about the mood in the locker room as the Utes celebrated their second-straight win over a BYU program that had dominated the series the past eight years. Both of those Utah wins have been at the Huntsman Center.

The rematch is March 8 in Provo. Suffice it to say the Cougars will be motivated, after Utah paraded to the free-throw line on its home court.

The Utes were awarded 32 free throws for their more aggressive play, while BYU got just 10 freebies, and missed six.

Trevin Knell’s miss of the front end of a one-and-one opportunity with 6.2 seconds left in overtime was especially costly, and sort of emblematic of BYU’s late-game woes.

The positive, said Young, was that the inbounds play on which Knell was fouled had been executed well. The 75% free-throw shooter’s attempt clanged off the side of the iron, and after a scramble, the ball went out of bounds and officials awarded it to the Utes.

“I thought tonight we had a lot of resolve with our backs against the wall and we made plays that we weren’t making in other games,” Young said. “I thought our offensive execution was actually really good down the stretch. There are growth moments there, but we have to string together more things than we currently are.”

Young: Critical calls didn’t go BYU’s way

As far as some of the calls that went against the Cougars down the stretch, including a foul assessed to Dawson Baker when Utah’s Hunter Erickson was bailed out with a late whistle with 13.2 seconds remaining in overtime (his two free throws were the difference in the game), Young chose his words carefully.

“Disappointed tonight with the way things transpired at the end of regulation and overtime,” he said, alluding to that call and a no call on a Baker drive a few seconds later. “In that critical juncture — I just watched it on tape — there was some stuff that happened out there that was head-scratching.”

As head-scratching as BYU’s inability to finish in close games.