Three days after Utah faced Kansas on the road at historic Allen Fieldhouse, the Runnin’ Utes were hosting No. 3 Houston at the Huntsman Center on Tuesday night.
Talk about a challenging back-to-back.
Utah had a couple nice little stretches, but ultimately, the Cougars showed exactly why they’re a top-five team.
Houston just doesn’t make too many mistakes, and they force their opponents into a lot, thanks to the tenacious defense the Cougars are known for.
“They do what they do, and they really expose your weakness as a team,” Utah coach Alex Jensen said. “But great crowd tonight, I thought. The student section, they stayed till the end, and I was happy with our guys at the end that kept playing.”
After Houston built a 15-point first-half lead, the Utes’ most impressive stretch of the night made it competitive going into the break.
Utah finished the first half on a 7-1 run to end the first half and was down 34-25 at the break.
Houston, though, put the defensive squeeze on to start the second half, and that carried them to the victory.
The Cougars forced turnovers on Utah’s first three possessions of the second half, and turned each of those takeaways into points.
That 6-0 spurt over the half’s first two minutes reset the tone for Houston (22-2, 10-1 Big 12), and from there, the Cougars never let the Utes (9-15, 1-10 Big 12) challenge them again.
It was the sixth straight loss for Utah.
Houston guard Emanuel Sharp had an outstanding night, from his defense to his 3-point shooting.
Sharp made 6 of 7 from long range over the game’s first 10 and a half minutes, and he hit two more 3-pointers back-to-back in the second half to push the Cougars’ lead to 48-39.
Sharp was the only sharpshooter from 3-point range in the game. Houston as a team was 9 of 26, including 1 of 13 outside of Sharp, while Utah went just 2 of 17.
“A game like tonight, we really focused on rebounding, because that’s where I think they really bury you — they get the ball up, and then they crash two or three guys and just smother you on the boards,” Jensen said.
“He had the six 3s (before halftime), that was the difference in the first half. There were two of them we showed at halftime that were mental errors on our part, not because it was him shooting it, but just we missed an assignment, or we rotated when we didn’t.”
Sharp ended up with 27 points and was the only Houston player to finish with double-digit scoring.
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson praised the senior for his toughness, his defensive work and “his heart and attitude” Tuesday night, which included helping shut down Utah’s leading scorer, Terrence Brown.
“His teams win 30 games every year (at Houston),” Sampson said of Sharp. “It’s not because of his 3s. It’s because of his toughness and his defense and the fact that he can not shoot (and be a contributor) is why we recruited him. His heart and his attitude, it brings that out,” Sampson said.
Brown ended up with 12 points, on 3 of 8 shooting, while also hitting 6 of 8 from the free-throw line.
Brown, who is averaging over 21 points per game, didn’t score his first field goal until two minutes remained in the second half, and seven of his points came in the final seven minutes after Utah had fallen behind by as many as 22 points.
“Terrence came up to me in the handshake line, and I tapped him on his chest. I told him to keep fighting, and that’s important for those kids to keep fighting,” Sampon said. “He said, ‘Man, y’all can guard.’ I said, ‘Y’all can, but the guy who guarded you really can.’”
Houston’s suffocating defense was a deterrent for fellow guard Don McHenry, who had just five points.
The Cougars forced Utah into 13 turnovers and converted those takeaways into 20 points.
“They had a great defensive team, you want to take care of the ball as much as possible. You want to limit your turnovers,” said Utah’s Seydou Traore, who had one of Utah’s best individual stat lines of the night with 12 points, four assists, two rebounds and a steal.
“Thirteen is kind of a lot playing a top 10 team like this, because they can execute off it every time. Gotta take care of the ball.”
The Cougars’ never-ending effort also led to a 12-5 edge in offensive rebounds, which turned into a 12-4 advantage in second-chance points.
“Our margin for error as a team is small, but especially against Houston offensively, it’s going to be that much smaller,” Jensen said, after his team didn’t surpass 10 points in the second half until a Traore 3-pointer with 7:54 to play.
Keanu Dawes had another solid night for the Utes in the loss, finishing with 15 points and eight rebounds. That included 9 early points to help keep Utah in the game through the first 10 minutes.
After facing a pair of back-to-back top 10 programs, the Utes will have a few days’ rest, with their next game coming Sunday at Cincinnati.
There are some things Utah can take away from these games against juggernauts Kansas and Houston, who along with Arizona, sit atop the Big 12 standings.
“That’s my message to the guys, not beating ourselves,” Jensen said. “… I keep saying it, our margin for error is small, but those little things that matter, and we’re getting better at it, but (focus) on the those little things that you can control. You can do it every possession — you might not make shots, but you can talk, which we’re getting better at.
“And we had a couple good defensive possessions, then one guy didn’t block out tonight, but something you can control and do every time. So I think we’re learning that.”
Dawes can see the positives in these matchups as well, as he experiences his second year of Big 12 play.
“This game probably got away from us faster than Kansas. I think it was about like the last eight minutes in Kansas,” Dawes said. “Things got away from us, but for the most part, we can really compete with any team. We just have to put it together for 40 minutes.”
That’s the objective Utah is chasing still, with seven games remaining in the regular season.