Late in Utah’s game against Cincinnati Tuesday night, the Huntsman Center videoboard might as well have played Miles Teller’s line from “Top Gun: Maverick” when he declared, “Then it’s a dogfight.”
The matchup between the Utes and Bearcats was an ugly, physical battle that wasn’t decided until the game’s final moments. Fortunately for the Utes, they were the ones who walked away with smiles on their faces.
Utah beat visiting Cincinnati 69-66, wrapping the game up at the free-throw line, a place that’s often been the team’s nemesis this year.
“It’s a lot more fun when you win,” an exuberant Utah coach Craig Smith said after the matchup.
The Utes (12-8, 4-5 Big 12) made 12 of 15 free throws in the second half, and 12 of 17 overall, in beating Cincinnati, which shot 14 of 22 from the charity stripe.
In a game neither team led by more than eight points, Bearcats coach Wes Miller lamented a third straight loss for his team that was once ranked in the Top 25.
“We left quite a bit on the line there,” Miller said.
There was only one field goal made between the two teams in the game’s final three minutes — a Gabe Madsen jumper that gave Utah the lead for good — but otherwise, the ending was defined at the free-throw line.
It was a chaotic, ugly final minute.
Cincinnati made two free throws to trim the Utah lead to 66-64 with 50 seconds left. Madsen missed a 3-pointer on Utah’s ensuing possession, but in the battle for the rebound, Utah’s Zach Keller was able to keep a Cincinnati player from retaining the board, and the ball went out of bounds off the Bearcats.
Madsen was then fouled and went to the line, where he made the first free throw, then had the second go around the rim twice before slipping out for his only free throw miss of the night.
The Utes, up three, then wisely fouled Jizzle James with 9.2 seconds to play before he could get a shot up, ensuring that CIncinnati couldn’t tie the game from the line.
James made both free throws, then Madsen was again fouled on the inbound. This time, he made both to give Utah a 69-66 lead.
On the Bearcats’ final possession, leading scorer Simas Lukosius got a long 3-point shot off from near the Cincinnati bench, but it wasn’t close and the Utes held on.
“It’s an ugly game sometimes, and we’ll figure all that stuff out,” Madsen said. “But you know, obviously, that’s how it went tonight, and we found a way and it feels good.”
For Madsen, who’s been in a shooting funk for some time, he was able to right the ship a bit on Tuesday, scoring a game-high 18 points on 5 of 13 shooting. He also had four assists and two rebounds against his former team.
That said, there were things to critique on both sides. For the Utes, they gave up 19 turnovers — 11 in the second half — that led to 21 points for Cincinnati off those takeaways.
“We’ve got to take care of the ball. I mean, we had 19 turnovers. It’s too many,” Smith said.
For the Bearcats, they were thoroughly outclassed on the boards. Utah ended up with a 41-23 rebounding edge and owned a 36-22 advantage in points in the paint.
“Even though we had 19 turnovers, we play like this, we have a bunch of guys who can rebound really well,” said Keanu Dawes, who added 12 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
“Whenever you can do something else extremely well, it kind of takes away from what you’re not doing at the time.”
During the first half, Utah was able to move the ball well and find quality shots, for the most part as Ezra Ausar and Madsen led the Utah offense during the first half.
Ausar, who picked up a first-half technical, had 11 points on the night — all in the opening 20 minutes — on 5 of 8 shooting and made his first 3-pointer of the season.
He was limited in the second half by foul trouble.
Madsen put up nine halftime points on 4 of 8 shooting. All nine of Madsen’s points came in a row during a 2 ½-minute span, then he added nine more in the second half.
The Utes ended the first half on a 6-0 run to create some separation, leading 40-34 at the break. That run included a Jake Wahlin layup that came off outstanding ball movement, while Keanu Dawes and Mike Sharavjamts scored on putbacks in the final minute.
Utah was scorching from the field in the first half, shooting 66.7%. That included hitting 4 of 7 from 3-point range. The only shooting blemish was at the free-throw line, where the Utes were 0 of 2 in the first half.
If the Utes could have held onto the ball better, the lead could have been greater. Utah had eight first-half turnovers to two for Cincinnati, and that gave the Bearcats an 8-3 edge in second-chance points.
Cincinnati, for its part, also had a solid first half on offense, shooting 43.8%.
For as hot as Utah was in the first half, though, a cold spell struck them in the second half. After the Utes went up a game-high eight points at 44-36 on a Lawson Lovering jumper just under three minutes into the half, Cincinnati forced Utah into multiple turnovers and sloppy play over the next seven minutes.
Five quick Cincinnati points made it 44-41, then with 13 minutes left, the Bearcats tied the game on a Day Day Thomas dunk that came off a Utah turnover and forced Smith to call a timeout.
After another Utah possession, Tyler Betsey drilled a 3-pointer and the Bearcats had a 47-44 lead. A little over a minute later, Cincinnati turned an offensive rebound into a bank-in 3-pointer from Josh Reed, and the run had extended to 14-0, giving the Bearcats a 50-44 lead.
The Utes had six turnovers during that Cincinnati run.
It was the third straight game wherein the Utes had a long stretch their offense couldn’t get going, and it cost them dearly in blowout losses at No. 7 Houston and at home against Baylor.
Utah, though, had an answer of its own this time.
Hunter Erickson broke the field goal slump with a 3-pointer to make it 50-49, then after a Cincinnati basket, he drove and got a goaltending call on a layup for five quick points.
Dawes then gave Utah the lead back at 53-52 with a layup off a Wahlin assist, and Dawes added another bucket — as well as a free throw on an and-one — to give Utah a four-point lead again.
Eventually, Utah ballooned its own run into an 18-4 edge that saw the Utes move back up eight. From there, it was game on for the final five minutes.
Thomas was issued a flagrant 1 when he shoulder-checked Sharavjamts out of bounds with 3:58 to play. After review, it was upgraded to a flagrant 2 and an ejection.
That could have been a chance for the Utes to effectively put the game away on a night where they outshot the visitors 53.1% to 39.3%. Unfortunately for Utah, Sharavjamts missed both free throws and the Utes turned the ball over on the inbound, unable to capitalize on a chance to extend their four-point lead.
The end of the game then turned into a tight battle — one that the Utes absolutely needed to win after a dismal 0-2 week that had spoiled a three-game winning streak.
It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t matter — Utah will take Tuesday’s win as-is, especially with two more winnable games (at Oklahoma State, vs. Colorado) next up on the schedule.
“The silver lining, we shoot 53% for the game, and if you do that, you know you should find your way to victory, so it’s good to get back in the win column,” Smith said.