Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Utah's Chris Hines and Josh Watkins each had potential game-tying shots from beyond the arc in the final seconds Thursday night at Stanford, but neither connected, and the Runnin' Utes fell to the Cardinal, 68-65.
Sophomore forward Josh Huestis came off the bench to score all of his 13 points in the second half to lead the Cardinal (14-3, 4-1) in both scoring and rebounding with 10 boards. Senior forward Josh Owens and sophomore guard Chasson Randle each added 11 points in the Stanford victory.
Quotable"The focus for us has been battling and competing on the road, we haven't done that all year. There have been stretches in games where we played with a road mentality. But I thought our guys couldn't have played any harder." -Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak
#box
After batting hard all game, Utah (4-12, 1-3) found itself down 10 with under a minute remaining. Seven straight points, capped by a Cedric Martin 3-pointer with under 20 ticks left on the clock, put the Utes back in the game.
After Randle sunk two free throws for Stanford, junior forward Dijon Farr scored and drew a foul with just eight seconds to go. Farr rebounded his own missed free throw, but Utah couldn't knock down either of its 3-point equalizer attempts.
Despite the loss, it was the Utes' best performance on the road this season.
"The focus for us has been battling and competing on the road, we haven't done that all year," Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak said. "There have been stretches in games where we played with a road mentality. But I thought our guys couldn't have played any harder."
Hines led all scorers with a career-high 21 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field, including 3-of-10 from 3-point range. He also had two steals.
Watkins scored 16 points with five assists and five rebounds in scoring in double digits for the 13th time in 15 games this season. He hit 6-of-15 from the floor, including 3-of-6 from downtown.
Farr added 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting with five boards.
Stanford jumped out to a 12-2 lead early, but Utah stormed back and scored 11 of the next 14 points. The Cardinal responded with a 15-3 run of its own, before Utah scored seven straight points to go into halftime down 30-23.
The Utes came out of the locker room on fire to start the second half, hitting each of their first 10 shots from the field, including four 3-pointers in four straight possessions to give Utah its first lead of the game, 39-37, at the 16:19 mark.
As a team, the Utes hit a season-high 10 3-pointers on a season-high 24 attempts in shooting 41.7 percent from long range. They also tied a season-high with 27 field goals made.
Utah held the lead until Stanford forward Dwight Powell's layup put the Cardinal back up, 48-47, with 8:24 to go in the contest.
Utah came to play and was competitive on the road with one of the best teams in the conference record-wise, but when contemplating the close loss, the Utes will have two striking stats that stick out at them: on the glass and at the free throw line.
Utah was outrebounded 34-22, including 11-6 on the offensive boards. Junior center Jason Washburn struggled, only managing three rebounds, during a season in which he's already gone over 100 boards and is averaging just under seven per contest.
The Utes hit just 1-of-11 from the charity stripe for a pathetic 11.1 percent. In a game that was decided by three points, those 10 missed free throws really came back to bite them.
Krystkowiak was disappointed in the rebounding deficit and dismal free-throw percentage, and hopes to address these more specific aspects of the game now that his team has begun to grasp the bigger picture.
"It came down to some little things," he said. "The thing for our team, I think, is we haven't had a lot of time to talk about the little things. It's been a lot of big-picture situations. We have some of the whole down, now we have to get back to the parts. Hopefully we continue to play this hard, then we can think about making free throws and blocking people out."
Still, it was Utah's best road outing of the season. In its preceding seven road or neutral-site games, the Utes lost by an average margin of 26.3 points.
"It was encouraging that we did this on the road," Krystkowiak said. "Beyond that it's still pretty rough because we were in a position to win so it always hurts. I told our guys a long time ago, if we play hard I don't care if we win, lose, or draw, as long as we don't cheat the game.
"I think they are starting to grasp that concept a little bit. There is a correlation, when you play hard, you are in games, and hopefully we can move on to some bigger things now."
The Utes will have to have a short memory as they face a quick turnaround. Utah will remain in the Bay Area to take on Cal Saturday night at 8:30 p.m.
