Alex Jensen’s first season as Utah’s basketball coach has been full of learning experiences.
Since the start of Big 12 Conference play, though, that’s often been associated with losing.
With two weeks left in the regular season, the Runnin’ Utes sit at 10-17 overall and 2-12 in Big 12 play, with losses in 13 of their last 15 games.
Utah was projected to finish near the bottom of the league, and the Utes play in arguably the nation’s toughest conference — as of Monday, the Big 12 has three teams ranked in the top 5 of the Associated Press top 25 rankings, and six in the top 25.
Still, the losses have led to frustration being expressed at times in recent weeks when players and coaches have met with the media following games.
That was the case again Saturday night after Utah lost a 73-71 thriller to UCF, a team that’s viewed as a strong NCAA tournament contender.
The Utes held a late second-half lead for the second time in three games — the other time coming in a 69-65 loss at Cincinnati six days earlier — yet couldn’t earn the win.
“To be honest, I’m getting sick of the moral victories. We were up by five at Cincinnati, who just beat Kansas at Kansas. And I feel bad for our guys, because the opportunities don’t come around a lot. I’m trying to get that across to him, to make the most of it. It’s hard, because I think we’re better than our record.”
— Utah coach Alex Jensen
“To be honest, I’m getting sick of the moral victories,” Jensen said after Saturday’s game. “We were up by five at Cincinnati, who just beat Kansas at Kansas. And I feel bad for our guys, because the opportunities don’t come around a lot.
“I’m trying to get that across to him, to make the most of it. It’s hard, because I think we’re better than our record.”
Jensen, who was accustomed to winning as an all-conference player at Utah in the 1990s and early 2000s, has used the phrase, “I think we’re better than our record,” twice in the past week and a half.
The other time came after that loss at Cincinnati, and in between the losses to the Bearcats and Knights, the Utes beat West Virginia 61-56 for the program’s first road win in 399 days.
Against the Mountaineers, Utah played from ahead after an 18-3 start to the game, then held off a West Virginia rally — that included Seydou Traore blocking a potential game-tying 3 in the final minute.
The flashes of improvement are there for the Utes, but making those moments result in wins is still elusive — and with this current group, the time is running short.
“(Against) West Virginia and TCU, the games we’ve won, we’ve made those plays down the stretch, not those big-time mistakes,” Jensen said. “So again, it’s just, it’s learning.”
In the UCF game, Utah held the lead for more than 10 minutes and overcame falling behind by as many as nine points in the first half, though slow starts have often plagued them in league play.
The Utes retook the lead with less than eight minutes to play thanks to a 10-0 run, then led again for the final time at 65-63 when Keanu Dawes made a corner 3 with 5:59 to play.
From there, though, Utah went five minutes without scoring, which put them in catchup mode going into the final minute.
“I think when we made our run the second half, we just ran a couple plays, and the guys did a really good job with it,” Jensen said. “But I think we kind of get impatient. We get sped up and obviously, playing a zone changes the tempo of the game, and we’re learning to play at that tempo.”
While the Utes tied the game twice in the final minute — first on a Don McHenry 3, then on three free throws from the guard — they never led.
Then came the final sequence. With 13.1 seconds to play and the game tied at 71-71, UCF took possession after McHenry’s free throws with a chance to take the lead again.
During a timeout prior to the final free-throw attempt, Utah discussed fouling the Knights before they got deep into their offensive set, as the Utes had a foul to give.
On the play, though, Traore ended up being called for a foul on Themus Fulks in the lane with 3.7 seconds to play, and officials awarded him two shots.
Fulks made both free throws and, without a timeout, the Utes couldn’t get off a solid shot attempt as they fell by two.
Both Jensen and one of Traore’s teammates took blame for putting the junior wing player in a bad situation on that play, explaining they had intended on having the foul occur before UCF had gotten deep into its action.
“That was a mistake by our coaching staff, and I’ll take the blame on that. We had a foul to give and obviously, you don’t want to foul them that late,” Jensen said. “And I feel bad for Seydou, because I think we put him in a bad spot.
“We told the ref we were trying to foul them, a dribble or two over half-court, so hopefully they’d have to take it out on the sideline with hopefully eight, seven seconds left.”
Terrence Brown, the Utes’ point guard, agreed that from his vantage point, Utah fouled too late, and he took responsibility in that situation.
“It was miscommunication, because (Jensen) thought I was supposed to be on the ball. I should have done a better job of communicating to Seydou and tell him what coach was telling me,” Brown said.
“Coach is the person off the floor, but I’m the coach on the floor that should be telling everybody the right things to do. I could take accountability for not telling Seydou the things that coach was telling me to do when I was supposed to be on the ball.”
UCF coach Johnny Dawkins provided words of encouragement for Jensen as he and his staff adjust to life in the Big 12. Dawkins went through that transition two years ago when the Knights joined the league.
“Alex is an incredible coach. I’ve watched his career. For him, he’s just adjusting to the league, just like we all had to adjust to it when we first got in, because there’s nothing like it,” Dawkins said. “Until you’re actually in it ... (that’s when) you recognize that from top to bottom, every single team, every single night is going to be a fight.
“... It’s just a function of just them growing together this year, and then understanding, like I had to do my first couple years, what do we need pieces-wise.”
For now, the latest loss leaves Utah with only five more guaranteed games, including one at the Big 12 tournament next month, and more if they can win at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
The opportunities to learn — and win in the process — are dwindling.
Utah will next host No. 4 Iowa State on Tuesday (7 p.m. MST, FS1), then will finish up the regular season with games at Arizona State and Baylor sandwiched around the team’s home finale against Colorado on March 3.
The Cyclones (23-4, 10-4) are coming off a 79-69 loss at then-No. 23 BYU last Saturday and are among the Big 12’s toughest defensive teams, a trait Jensen desires to see in his teams long-term.
Iowa State is third in the Big 12 in scoring defense, giving up an average of 65.1 points per game, and are eighth nationally in defensive efficiency, according to Haslam Metrics.
The other three regular-season games come against teams who, like Utah, are on the bottom half of the Big 12 standings. ESPN’s predictive analytics give the Utes a 31.4% chance to win at Arizona State, a 57.1% chance against Colorado and a 15.9% chance against Baylor.
There are chances, yes, but the team understands the opportunities are getting scarce to earn wins before year’s end.
“It hurts to lose games that way, but when we wake up from it, I think it’s a good lesson for us just to see how good we are when we can be competing at our close to our best,” McHenry said of the loss to UCF.
“... But right now, it just hurts to lose a game that you know you can win. It (doesn’t) happen a bunch of times. The feeling right now for me is I just wish we could take a couple plays back. We (were) there. We could have won that game.”
