The 2025-26 version of Utah basketball hit rock bottom Tuesday night in the first half of its matchup against Colorado.
Yes, the Runnin’ Utes had an inexcusable loss in nonconference play when they fell at home to Cal Poly. This time, though, the wheels fell off as Utah went limping into halftime trailing 51-25 against the Buffaloes on Senior Night at the Huntsman Center.
At one point, a couple fans mockingly applauded a Utah score that snapped a long run for the Buffaloes.
Mind you, this came just three days after that same Colorado team lost by 40 points to No. 5 Houston. Sure, the Cougars are one of the country’s best teams and in serious contention for a No. 1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament, but the optics of such a lopsided half for Utah to another bottom-half Big 12 team was not good.
“Very disappointing first half,” Utah first-year coach Alex Jensen said to open his postgame press conference. “I think everybody expects more out of our guys. Having played here and … I think the fans, the university deserves better than that.
“Our guys, I told them at halftime ... for whatever reason they play, the people around them, they owe it to them and to themselves. They owe them better than that.”
The Utes ultimately woke up in the second half and had a better showing on both ends of the court but never could get closer than nine points over the final 20 minutes in a 92-78 loss.
The loss dropped Utah below .500 at home on the year, at 8-9, its first losing season at home since the 2021-22 campaign, the first year of the Craig Smith era.
“We came out and fought in the second half, but that’s been kind of our thing all year long, is you can’t play a half and win a lot of games,” Jensen said.
“Every possession has to mean more to you. It’s easy to ramp it up when you’re down a lot of times, but can you do that at the beginning and sustain it throughout the game?”
Tuesday night, the Utes took their lumps again, falling into similar traps — turnover issues, long scoring droughts, a lacking defensive effort. All that contributed to the decisive run of the contest.
With 14:46 left in the first half, Utah and Colorado were tied at 13-13. Over the next 10-plus minutes, the Buffaloes went on a 31-8 run.
Colorado had 13 fast-break points in that stretch. Utah, meanwhile, had six turnovers in that run, and in the first half, the Buffaloes turned nine Utah giveaways into 13 points.
“It’s hurt us all year, the turnovers. You’re going to have turnovers, but the problem is I think that it’s the same ones that we’ve had all year,” Jensen said.
“And it’s just the maturity and the capacity for not making the same mistake. You’re going to make mistakes, but don’t let those mistakes be not playing hard or doing the same thing over and over again.”
Terrence Brown echoed his coach’s sentiments, saying that 10-minute stretch when things snowballed, the Utes weren’t communicating.
“Coach was just emphasizing how slow we started and how we weren’t really connected, like talking. We were a little sluggish out there,” Brown said.
“I’d definitely say that’s what led to their run is, as a whole, just being lazy on defense and being sluggish the whole first half.”
It ended up being Utah’s third straight double-digit loss, and for a while, it appeared that the Utes might have their most lopsided loss of the year.
Going into the night, Utah’s biggest loss of the season was 19 points against No. 1 Arizona in the Big 12 opener. Three minutes into the second half, it was still a 26-point lead for Colorado.
“I thought were really dialed in defensively and we created some offense with our defense,” Colorado coach Tad Boyle said of his team’s first-half effort. “In the second half, it was just the opposite.”
Utah finally started getting some stops and showed effort on both ends. Over the next six-plus minutes, the Utes went on a 19-4 run to make it 64-53.
That got the crowd back into the game, and Utah fed off that energy — and some incredibly efficient shooting.
The Utes made 13 of their first 15 shots of the second half and got to within nine points on three different occasions, but every time, Colorado had an answer.
Brown scored 17 of his 26 points in the second half, while Don McHenry had 15 of his 19 in the second half.
Jensen’s halftime speech did provide a spark, but the team knows it needs a full 40-minute effort.
“We’ve got to start off the game like that and just come out ready to play, but it definitely did light a spark in us coming into the second half,” Utah’s Seydou Traore said.
The Utes’ 73.9% shooting in the second half wasn’t enough to overcome a 34.5% effort in the first half, all while allowing Colorado to shoot 60.8% from the floor for the night.
The tone was set in that first half.
Utah only had one turnover in the second half, but those nine that led to 13 Colorado points in the opening 20 minutes loomed large.
The Buffaloes also owned a 26-16 edge in paint points and 13-5 in fast break points during the first half.
While the Utes managed to catch up to the Buffaloes in points in the paint (both had 36) and lost the fast break points battle 15-14, the 26-point deficit was far too much to overcome.
Utah will wrap up the regular season at Baylor on Saturday (3 p.m. MST, Peacock), then it’s off to the Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City next week.
The Utes will be the No. 16 seed at the tournament. They went into Tuesday night with the chance to climb up to the No. 15 seed, but Kansas State beat West Virginia to move a game ahead of Utah in the Big 12 standings, and the Wildcats own the tiebreaker over Utah by virtue of winning their only regular-season matchup.
