Late turnovers doom Utes against OSU

The Utes had chances to get the win over Oregon State on Wednesday night, but they had one too many turnovers that cost them the chance. Utah had two chances with the clock winding down, but a turnover on a lob ended one chance to tie the game down two, and then a turnover at the end cost the Utes the ability to go for a game tying three. Utah ended up losing the game 75-70.

The Utes had a nice first half, as they had both Timmy Allen and Alfonso Plummer clicking early on, both had double digits in the opening half. For the opening half, and much of the game, neither team could really get breathing room from the other. It was a game of mini runs, and with Plummer scoring the final 11 points for Utah in the opening half, Utah was countering everything OSU was throwing at them, and led by three, 40-37, at half.

The back and forth continued into the second half, as each team countered a run with a run of their own. There was 19 lead changes in the game, so it was a battle. For the Utes, when they were wanting to make a move to get over the top, a turnover would doom them. Whether it was the ones previously mentioned, or the one where Plummer had a turnover by stepping on the end line, Utah just couldn’t get that final push.

Utah ended up with 15 turnovers, not an awful number, but about three too many. They were led by Allen’s 23 points, Plummer had 15 (12 in the first half), 12 by Pelle Larsson, who hit some big threes, Brandon Carlson had 10 (9 in the first half), but he had just two rebounds. A seven footer needs to have more than two rebounds. Mikael Jantunen pitched in seven, and Ian Martinez had just three. Utah shot 54% on the game, which is great, but they gave up 52% on the defensive side. Here’s another crazy stat. OSU had 27 bench points. Utah just the three.

NOTEABLES

Allen is now 25th all-time in scoring at Utah after scoring 23 points with 1,266 career points and now needs five points to pass Brandon Taylor for 24th all-time … despite the loss, Utah shot 54 percent (24-of-46) from the field while Oregon State shot 53 percent (29-of-55) … OSU was able to turn all 12 offensive rebounds into 24 points while also out rebounding the Utes 30-20.

UP NEXT

Utah will wrap up its regular-season this Saturday, March 6, when it entertains Arizona State at Noon (MT) on FS1 inside the Jon M. Huntsman Center.