5 observations from Utah basketball’s loss to Nevada in its exhibition opener

Alex Jensen’s first game as head coach of the Runnin’ Utes is in the books.

It came in a losing effort, as visiting Nevada came into the Huntsman Center — where Jensen had a storied career of his own in his playing days — and beat Utah 80-77 on Friday night in the Utes’ exhibition opener.

Thanks to the NCAA relaxing rules surrounding preseason games this offseason, the Utes will play two exhibition contests before the regular season starts in early November. Next week, Utah will head to Eugene, Oregon, to take on former Pac-12 rival Oregon.

There was a little bit of drama at the end Friday, as Nevada went 1 of 2 from the free-throw line to go up 80-77 with four seconds to play and Jahki Howard had a shot to send the game to overtime.

His 3 from midcourt missed, though.

Understandably, the action was a bit scattershot at times. That’s going to happen this early, especially with a Utes team that was getting its first taste of playing together in a game atmosphere.

That haphazardness helped lead to a 7-0 Nevada run that gave it the 32-27 edge with three minutes until halftime, and the Wolf Pack went into the break with a 34-32 lead.

Utah played from behind a good portion of the night, but the contest never got out of hand.

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“We said in the locker room after, they played hard. There’s things that we can be better at as a coaching staff and help them in situations, but yeah, they played hard,” Jensen said.

“You know, happy for that and we can remedy, limit the mistakes, but just going back to the transition (defense), (it’s) one of those things we’ve talked about a lot like every day in practice. It’s a great game to have a lot to learn from, but it’s hard to move forward unless you have those basic, foundational things that we’ve tried to teach them.”

Jensen pointed toward turnovers and transition defense as determining factors in the loss. Utah ended up with 18 turnovers to Nevada’s 14, and the Wolf Pack, who outshot the Utes 46.8% to 42.9% from the floor, had a 17-11 edge in fast break points.

“I think the turnovers and the fast break points were the hard part for us tonight,” Jensen said.

Who was in the starting five?

The Utes rolled out this starting lineup for the matchup against Nevada:

• G — Terrence Brown
• G — Jacob Patrick
• F — Seydou Traore
• F — Keanu Dawes
• F — James Okonkwo

Dawes makes sense, he’s headed into his junior season after breaking out at the end of his sophomore campaign. He’s also the only returnee from Craig Smith’s final season who played significant minutes a year ago.

Traore, Okonkwo and Brown also make sense as starters if that is how things pan out when the team opens the season Nov. 3 against San Jose State. Like Dawes, they’re veterans who will be expected to help lead a roster that has 80% turnover.

Okonkwo ended up starting at the 5, with Dawes and Traore flanking him in the front court and Patrick and Brown in the backcourt.

Patrick is the most surprising of the starting five, though perhaps he shouldn’t be. The 6-foot-6 wing comes to Utah after playing professionally the past five seasons in the top league in Germany.

Patrick made three first-half 3-pointers and hit a team-high four overall on the night. His quick release will be valuable for the Utes.

Brown can create his own shot and is a strong option to be Utah’s leading scorer one year after he averaged 20.6 points per game at Fairleigh Dickinson.

Okonkwo comes to Utah as a fifth-year senior with valuable experience playing in a variety of leagues, from the MAC with Akron to the ACC with North Carolina to the Big 12 with West Virginia. He had a quieter night and needed to be stronger in his moves to the rim offensively.

Traore, who got injured, ended up leaving the game with just under seven minutes in the first half and didn’t return. Jensen said there was no update on his status while mentioning he suffered a lower-leg injury.

Before Traore exited the game, he had 5 points (on 2 of 3 shooting) to go with two rebounds and two assists in 11 minutes.

“He’s going to get checked by the doc tonight, and I think we’ll find more out,” Jensen said. “Hopefully it’s not too bad. … Definitely, we’re a different team without Seydou.”

Who was first off the bench?

Elijah “Choppa” Moore, Jahki Howard and Obomate “Elmeri” Abbey came in to play alongside Dawes and Brown at the first media timeout.

That ended up being the top eight players Utah kept on the floor for the majority of the first half, and by game’s end, that group led the team in minutes played.

Kendyl Sanders came in for the first time in the final 10 seconds of the first half, while Josh Hayes and Alvin Jackson III saw their first action in the second half.

To start the second half, Dawes, Patrick and Brown were on the court, along with Howard and Hayes, the JUCO transfer from Northwest Florida State College.

Don McHenry, a Western Kentucky transfer guard who is expected to contribute heavily this season, did not dress. Neither did Ibi Traore, who missed all of last season due to injury.

Regarding McHenry, Jensen said, “We’ll find out more about that. We have a week till we play Oregon and again being the preseason or exhibition season, no rush.

“Don’t want to make it worse, but I imagine we’ll take it as it goes. Hopefully he’s ready to go next Friday.”

Who played the most minutes, led the team in scoring, etc.?

Brown (33 minutes) and Dawes (31) both played over 30 minutes, while Patrick (24), Howard (23) and Abbey (23) all had 20-plus.

Brown had an efficient night offensively, scoring a game-high 27 points while shooting 8 of 13 from the field, 2 of 4 from 3-point range and 9 of 10 from the free-throw line.

He also had a team-high six assists and three rebounds.

“He plays hard. It’s actually a nice thing as a coach to have to tell a kid to slow down, you know, because he has one speed,” Jensen said of Brown.

“... He kept playing hard. He’s improved a lot since he’s been here, and he was good tonight, and just kept going. He was steady. That was a great thing.”

Dawes nearly finished with a double-double, scoring 9 points while adding a game-high 13 rebounds.

Patrick also had a solid night offensively, scoring 14 points while shooting 5 of 9 from the floor and 4 of 7 from 3-point range.

How did Utah’s team cohesion look?

There’s work to be done here, which is totally understandable. There’s so many new pieces on this team, and two of the first eight guys in the game for Utah were playing internationally a year ago.

The upperclassmen were the ones making plays the majority of the night for Utah, while some of the younger guys such as Howard and Moore had quiet nights.

There will be more opportunities for those guys going forward.

“It felt good to finally play against another team,” Dawes said.

Added Brown: “It was a good opportunity to get out here in front of fans.”

How did Utah manage its frontcourt?

Okonkwo started at the 5 for Utah, then Dawes slid over when Okonkwo went out.

Primarily, those two manned the paint while other forwards stuck out on the wings in the first half before Jensen started playing some other guys more minutes in the second half.

It’s unfortunate that Utah lost forward Babacar Faye to a season-ending injury in practice a few weeks ago. He would have added some valuable experience and versatility up front for the Utes, but at least Utah has time to find solutions to help Okonkwo and Dawes in the middle.

During the ESPN+ livestream, Utah general manager Wes Wilcox shared that Okonkwo will miss the first three games of the season due to transfer rules, according to Runnin’ Hoops Podcast.

Final thought

Jensen shared what it meant to him returning to the Huntsman as a coach after enjoying so much success in that arena as a player.

“It was good. It was interesting because we’re on a different bench than when I was here, when we played, but it was good,” Jensen said.

“It’s a special place and, myself and the team, we want to do the the teams and people who have come before proud. So, great place, a lot of great games there and hopefully there’ll be many more to come.”