A usual culprit — turnover issues — plagued the Utah women’s basketball team in its 73-55 loss at Oklahoma State Monday afternoon at Gallagher-Iba Arena.
The Utes had a season-high tying 24 turnovers in the blowout loss, and the Cowgirls turned those takeaways into 26 points.
“There’s a level of toughness and focus and intensity that is required to win against good teams like Oklahoma State on the road, good teams like Iowa State at home, and we continue to just be careless with the basketball over penetrating for whatever reason,” Utah coach Gavin Petersen said in his postgame interview on ESPN 700 AM.
It was more than just that: the Cowgirls took the fight to Utah, and the Utes didn’t have an answer.
Oklahoma State’s suffocating defense — aided by a whistle that seemed to favor the home team in terms of physicality — kept Utah’s offense out of rhythm, and the Cowgirls blew the game wide open in the third quarter when they outscored the Utes 24-8.
“Teams are going to try to be physical with us, and we’ve got to do a better job handling that,” Petersen said.
It added up to a frustrating loss for Utah (17-10, 8-7 Big 12) on President’s Day. It’s the team’s fourth defeat in its past six contests.
With only three games left in the regular season, the Utes may need to win out to earn a first-round bye at the Big 12 tournament next month.
Only the eight top seeds earn a first-round bye, and with the loss, Utah is all alone in ninth place in the conference standings.
“I keep challenging them, who is going to start to be accountable? Be that accountable leader for us on the floor,” Petersen said.
“That’s what we’ve got to finish off the season with, being accountable — not looking to point fingers, not getting defensive if you’re being coached hard.”
Utah’s offense never got on track until the game was in hand, as the Utes scored only 31 points over the first three quarters. Utah shot 38.6% from the field and 6 of 18 from 3 in the game.
While Oklahoma State (21-7, 10-5 Big 12) and Utah both went into halftime shooting 38% from the floor, the Cowgirls improved offensively in the second half and finished the day shooting 43.1% overall.
Oklahoma State also shot 14 more field goal attempts than Utah, thanks to the turnover disparity.
All totaled, the Utes missed 14 layups and had only 10 assists, their second-worst effort in that category of the season. The Cowgirls also had a 34-20 edge in points in the paint.
“We’ve got to do a better job of moving the basketball, playing with pace, and that just wasn’t there,” Petersen said.
Utah’s offense finally found a semblance of itself in the fourth quarter, when it shot 54.5% and made three 3-pointers, but by then, the game was well in hand for the home team.
Little-used Samantha Crispe and senior Maty Wilke were the only two Utes to score in double-figures, as they both had 10 points.
“I love Sam because of her willingness to play multiple positions for us, and I keep telling her, it is really about matchups for her to get into the game,” Petersen said.
“Oklahoma State, at times, goes five guards. It’s a challenge to guard her there at the four position, so I told Sam, you got to be ready for the five. ...Just proud of the kid, because she has the grit, that grind mentality, she keeps showing up. That’s all her.”
Brooke Walker (eight points, four rebounds, two assists) and Evelina Otto (six points, seven rebounds) provided some positive minutes for Utah, though leading scorer Lani White was held to seven points.
The Cowgirls, meanwhile, had five players score in double-figures, paced by 17 points from Micah Gray and 15 points, seven rebounds and four assists from Haleigh Timmer.
Despite the turnover troubles and poor shooting, the Utes trailed only 29-23 at halftime, thanks to its own gritty defensive effort against a normally potent Oklahoma State offense.
Walker hit a jumper just before the halftime buzzer to make it a six-point game, and though the Utes had 14 of their turnovers in the first half, they had stayed within striking distance.
The start of the third quarter, though, all but extinguished Utah’s hopes, as the Utes turned the ball over on three of their first five possessions of the second half and Oklahoma State used a 7-2 spurt to go ahead by double-digits.
That set the tone for a third quarter that saw the Cowgirls shoot 8 of 17 from the floor, 2 of 5 from 3 and 6 of 7 from the free-throw line, while the Utes shot 2 of 9 and turned the ball over six times.
With Utah squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble, and probably on the outside looking in after Monday’s result, it needs a strong finish before the NCAA tournament field is revealed on March 15.
Up next is a home game against BYU on Saturday (2 p.m. MST, ESPN+). When the two rivals met in Provo earlier this year, the Utes had a 10-point halftime lead, but the Cougars rallied to win 77-65.
“I want to see a focus and intensity from our team,” Petersen said. “We’ve got to get better at limiting our turnovers. We’ve got to do a better job of executing running our offense when we call a play, not three people knowing what we’re doing and two people guessing, or four people knowing and one person like, what are we running?
“That type of stuff is just, we’ve got to get on the same page, just being coachable. That’s what I fell in love with this team with early in the year, and we’ve got to continue to be coachable as we near the finish line of the Big 12 Conference.”