Following yet another Big 12 Conference loss Saturday, Utah coach Alex Jensen didn’t mince words in his postgame press conference.
In front of a crowd of 7,293, including Utah basketball alumni, the Runnin’ Utes let the game slip away in the final six minutes in a 81-69 loss to Oklahoma State.
The defeat was the Utes’ third consecutive and dropped the team to 1-7 in Big 12 play.
After a 91-78 loss to BYU last Saturday, Utah had an entire week to prepare to for the Cowboys, and though Jensen thought his team had a good week of practice, that didn’t show in the final part of the game this Saturday.
In a back-and-forth contest in which neither team could grab momentum for much of game, Oklahoma State pulled away late to win its first Big 12 road game since Feb. 21, 2024.
Cowboy guard Anthony Roy scored 26 points, one off his season high, including knocking down five 3-pointers — multiple of which were from well beyond the arc.
“We had a week. We talked about him and again. A few of our guys have trouble absorbing the information,” Jensen said.
“... It goes back to thinking about me and scoring and me on defense, guarding my guy, not how I fit in with the other four. I think it was like a team effort in not recognizing him, and another way, a big way that it’s selfish is not talking. We have multiple guys that don’t talk, and that’s one way to be selfish in your own little world. But no, give Roy credit, hard to guard.”
Oklahoma State shot 48.5% from the field overall, while Utah struggled on offense, shooting 40.7% from the field and 25% from 3, including 1 for 9 from deep in the second half.
The Cowboys, up three, separated from the Utes with six minutes left in the game. Utah went cold, missing two straight shots and turning the ball over, leading to a Vyctorius Miller layup to give Oklahoma State a five-point lead with 4:31 left.
Utah would get as close as four points after a Terrence Brown jumper, but a Parsa Fallah 3-pointer with 3:23 left effectively put the game out of reach on a night the Utes’ shots were not falling from deep.
The Utes were just 3 for 8 from the field in the final 5:30 of the game.
“I feel like we were getting sped up most of the game. I think if we just took our time, because their big man was kind of blitzing the screen, I think if we kind of took our time with that and just made sure we looked at all our options, we would have did a better job,” Utah forward Seydou Traore said.
Oklahoma State outrebounded Utah 43-34 and scored 12 second-chance points in the victory.
Postgame, Jensen made sure to send a message to his team.
“Disappointing game tonight. Thought we had a good week of practice, but I think we regressed. I give (Oklahoma State coach) Steve (Lutz) a lot of credit. He was prepared for us tonight, but disappointing because I thought (we were) very selfish tonight,” Jensen said.
“Very selfish and I thought we were getting better at that way, but very, very selfish, individually tonight as a team.”
Jensen pinned Utah’s woes in the final six minutes on selfish play from his players.
“Too many guys were in their own world. Too many guys started the game thinking about just scoring and we didn’t pass. And then obviously that hurts our defense, but there’s also other ways to be selfish, guys not talking, guys not being ready to shoot. That’s a way to be selfish as well,” Jensen said.
Saturday was alumni night at the Huntsman Center, featuring former Runnin’ Utes spanning from players from the ’80s and ’90s to as recent as Parker Van Dyke, who graduated in 2019.
Tim Drisdom, who played at Utah from 2002-2006, sung the national anthem prior to the game.
Utah’s play and level of effort on Saturday in front of those who had donned the jersey before them only added to the embarrassment for Jensen, someone who helped lead Utah to new heights as a program in his playing days.
“I think we have good character guys. They haven’t shown in the last two games. I think that goes to the selfishness. It was disappointing when we stopped playing tonight and they got that basket. It makes you question on how much you care and that’s an interesting thing,” Jensen said.
“The crowd was great tonight. Unbelievable crowd. We had some alumni back and I’m embarrassed. That was far from a University of Utah team that’s been here for decades. We might lose, but we’re not going to lose that way, so we’ll work on it and try to find some different combinations.”
Keanu Dawes, who scored 12 points, spoke to Jensen’s point about the team not playing together.
“We didn’t really come together as a team on both sides of the ball. Defensively, there was a lot of lapses that shouldn’t have happened, and offensively, same thing,” Dawes said.
After losing a winnable game against Oklahoma State, the schedule just gets tougher for the Utes from here on out. Utah has a chance to get back on the winning track next Wednesday when it hosts Arizona State, but after that, the Utes start a tough three-game stretch featuring games at Kansas, vs. Houston and at Cincinnati.
Aside from possibly the next home game against Arizona State, the Utes will likely not be favored in a single contest for the rest of the season.
“Our margin for error is small, and it’s all the little things,” Jensen said. “There’s teams like Arizona, we’re probably not going to beat Arizona. That’s a really good team. We fought hard, we got back within eight.
“That’s the disappointing thing about tonight. Oklahoma State’s a good team, but we’re good enough to beat ‘em and it’s disappointing.”