Gabe Madsen scored a season-high tying 28 points against his former school in his first time playing back at Cincinnati Tuesday night. It wasn’t enough.
Utah was tied with the Bearcats 72-72 with 3:55 remaining. It wasn’t enough.
The Runnin’ Utes were able to make 13 3-pointers and limit themselves to 10 turnovers. It wasn’t enough.
No, Utah couldn’t capitalize on its chances to earn a rare road win Tuesday night, instead falling to Cincinnati 85-75 at Fifth Third Arena.
It was the Utes’ third loss during a four-game stretch, with all the losses coming on the road.
In this one, more so than the other two defeats, Utah showed enough toughness and grit to give itself a shot.
The Bearcats, though, finished the game on a 13-3 run for their third straight win.
It’s especially tough for Utah (13-11, 5-8 Big 12) considering that No. 17 Kansas and Kansas State, the latter of which is the hottest team in the Big 12 and perhaps the country, are coming to the Huntsman Center next weekend for a rare Saturday-Monday set of contests.
“A lot of good things to be proud of, but you’ve got to be tough. I mean, you’ve got to be able to play 40 minutes,” Utah coach Craig Smith said in his 700 AM postgame interview.
“It’s not going to be perfect, and we’ve just got to be able to make those plays. In our wins, we were able to make those plays down the stretch.”
Inconsistency has been a defining characteristic of the Utes this season, and against Cincinnati, it happened again.
Utah had the opportunity for a season sweep of the Bearcats, after beating them 69-66 two weeks ago in Salt Lake City.
In that game, the Utes outrebounded Cincinnati by 18. In their Ohio matchup, though, the Bearcats had a 12-rebound edge at 41-29, and it was particularly damaging on the offensive end.
“We knew we had to be physical. We worked on that in practice for this game,” Cincinnati’s Josh Reed said during a postgame interview on ESPN+.
Cincinnati outrebounded Utah 11-3 on the offensive glass in the first half, and it led to a 10-2 advantage in second-chance points.
While the Utes cut down the gap in the second half — Cincinnati finished with a 14-9 offensive rebound and 16-13 second-chance scoring edge — the Bearcats set the tone early and came up with important second-chance opportunities.
None were bigger than on back-to-back possessions after Utah managed to tie the game at 72-72 with just under four minutes remaining.
Following the under-four minute media timeout, Cincinnati’s Jizzle James missed a pull-up 3-pointer, but Reed came up with the offensive rebound and scored on a driving layup to give the Bearcats the lead at 74-72.
Madsen missed a stepback 3-point attempt on the ensuing possession that could have given Utah the lead, then Simas Lukosius missed a 3-pointer with 2:28 to play.
Again, though, the Utes didn’t properly crash the boards, as Day Day Thomas grabbed the offensive rebound. With 2:09 to play and the shot clock running down, the ball moved back out to Thomas, who drilled a 3-pointer to make it 77-72.
While there was still time for Utah to recover, the Utes never did. Hunter Erickson then had a costly turnover near midcourt, and it led to two Reed free throws that made the score 81-74 with 1:58 left.
Another Madsen 3-point miss, followed by an alley-oop dunk from former Utah Valley center Aziz Bandaogo, pushed the lead back to nine, and the Bearcats outscored Utah 13-3 over the game’s final four minutes.
“You’ve got to give them credit. They go (3)-for-4 down the stretch with two offensive boards in there, and we don’t get anything done on our end of the floor,” Smith said.
The Utes suffered from another bad defensive outing, as guys like James delivered big shots when Cincinnati needed them.
“Our defense has to be better,” Smith said simply.
James scored 25 points on 10 of 15 shooting, while adding six assists and two rebounds. Reed scored 13 and made a team-high three 3-pointers, all of which came during a first-half stretch when Cincinnati broke open a tie game to go into the break leading by six.
“It felt great winning three games in a row, playing here at home in front of all these fans cheering us on every night,” Reed said. “And for me, it just feels great coming out, being aggressive from the start, my teammates setting me up, and a lot of love from the fans.”
Both teams shot nearly identical from the field — Utah had 31 field goals to 30 for Cincinnati, and the Utes made 13 of 32 3-pointers while the Bearcats were more efficient and hit 11 of 22.
Utah, though, never made a free throw, missing its three attempts on the night while not showing commitment to attack and draw fouls after it owned the paint early in the game.
Instead, the Utes relied on long jumpers and 3-point attempts over the back half of the game. Cincinnati, meanwhile, hit 14 of 19 free throws, including 12 of 16 in the second half.
It spoiled a 28-point effort from Madsen, who was 10 of 26 from the field and 8 of 22 from 3-point range. He helped spark an 11-2 run to start the second half, as Utah went from down 42-36 at halftime to going up 47-44.
Smith admitted, though, that the Utes relied too much on Madsen to come up with shots late in the game, and he missed his last seven attempts of the night.
Several of those were ill-advised shots.
“It’s a fine line. Gabe was feeling it there for a while. You know, we shot 40% from the 3, which is a really good number, but certainly, I’m not sure some of those shots late were exactly what we’re looking for,” Smith said. “A couple of them are wide open. They just didn’t go in and and (the Bearcats) were able to finish the game.”
Lawson Lovering had 14 points on 7 of 9 shooting, though he scored just two points after halftime as Utah was 9 of 24 from 3-point range in the final 20 minutes.
The effort from Madsen and Lovering, in particular, was encouraging after Smith called out his upperclassmen after the team’s loss to West Virginia last Saturday.
Still, the sum of the parts led to another effort wherein the Utes showed promise but not enough of a winning effort, especially when it mattered most.
It leaves Utah in a tough spot with the Kansas schools coming to town. The Utes have a few winnable games over their final seven regular-season Big 12 contests, but there’s also the chance that things could get worse before they get better.
Utah still has games at Arizona and at BYU, in addition to the Kansas pair.
“I thought we did some really good things on this road trip, but obviously going 0-2, that hurts,” Smith said.