Runnin' Utes looking to bounce back against UC Riverside

SALT LAKE CITY — The Runnin’ Utes return to action Friday night as they host UC Riverside, and are looking to overcome the offensive struggles that plagued the team against No. 16 San Diego State Tuesday.

“When you lose it hopefully has some guys attention and there’s no complacency and you’re kinda ready to figure out what it was that was broken and not let it happen again,” Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak said.

Utah shot only 32 percent in its 53-49 loss, with team leaders Delon Wright and Jordan Loveridge only scoring a combined 12 points. But despite the low production from the veterans, Krystkowiak said he was encouraged that his team nearly had an opportunity to win the game at the end.

“If you would have told me going into that game the stat lines of Jordan and Delon ahead of time I’d say there’s no way we would have any chance,” Krystkowiak said. “We went 10 minutes in the first half without scoring a field goal and we had a 1-point lead at halftime, so there’s plenty of positives that happened.”

Utah was once again plagued by poor shooting from the free throw line, particularly with freshman center Jakob Poeltl. The team was 11-of-16 from the free throw line, with Poeltl shooting 2-of-6.

“We’re not shooting the free throw nearly as well as we need to,” Krystkowiak said. “And Jakob’s probably the leader; he’s getting to the line way more than everybody else and he’s shooting a poor clip. When you’ve got volume like that it’s important that he picks it up. There’s a lot of guys that need to start focusing when they get up there, and hopefully we can get there more and then cash in on them.”

Part of Utah’s success in a loss came from the production of the new players who weren’t overpowered in a hostile environment, Krystkowiak said, which allowed the team to stay close and have an opportunity to win the game.

“Some of the young kids are earning our trust, whether it’s Brekkott (Chapman) or Isaiah (Wright),” Krystkowiak said. “Guys (are) coming in and having an impact, so they deserve some more time out there because they played really well in a hostile environment.

“Our guys have a lot of pride, and my experience up to this point is that they tend to bounce back pretty well when they don’t play well, but that’s all print. Talk is pretty cheap,” Krystkowiak added. “I’m not going to jinx anybody but that’s your hope. Typically those guys have a lot of pride and they don’t want to play consecutive games where they’re not putting up numbers.”

Part of Utah’s approach Friday night will be sticking to the basics of the game and looking to execute well on both ends of the court.

“We don’t need to recreate the wheel here. But let’s do some ordinary things extraordinarily well,” Krystkowiak said. “And that’s been my focus since we left (San Diego). It’s not time to come up with a new offense. It’s just a little more of the meat and potatoes, put your hard hat on (fix).”

Scheduling San Deigo State

Krystkowiak said scheduling San Diego State was intentional and that he doesn't plan to hide from competition in its non-conference schedule.

"I didn’t just say all the sudden, ‘let’s go give it a shot.’ I’ve thought for a lot of reasons it was a really good game for us," he said. "My point is we’ve got to win some games, obviously. But I don’t want there to come a point in an NCAA tournament committee where a bunch of guys that are in a hotel room, and they look at our schedule and say they didn’t play a hard enough schedule."

Utah (1-1) and UC Riverside (1-1) will tipoff at 7 p.m. at the Huntsman Center. The game will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks.

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