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SALT LAKE CITY — Senior Josh "Jiggy" Watkins scored 23 points and Jason Washburn recorded his first career double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds in Utah’s 58-55 season-opening victory over San Diego Christian College Monday night at the Huntsman Center in coach Larry Krystkowiak's Utah head coaching debut.
Watkins hit 1-of-2 free throws with 1.6 seconds remaining to put Utah up by three, and SDCC's Tim Sanders' desperate heave from half court came up empty, securing the Utah victory.
Utah appeared to be pulling away from what had been a close game, leading by seven before Johnnie Delbene's three-point shot made it a 52-48 game with three minutes to go.
The Utes managed to stay ahead, despite another big three- pointer from Benji Arvizu with just 12 seconds on the clock, narrowing the Utah lead to 55-52.
At that point it was a free throw competition, with the Utes hitting 3-of-4 to ice the game.
Watkins got to the basket at will and also to the line often in going 8-of-14 from the field and 6-of-8 from the free throw line. He also added four rebounds and five assists.
After the Utes got off to an ugly start, missing on their first possession and turning the ball over on their next two, Watson took control, scoring five points in the next two possessions. Six minutes into the first half, he buried a three-point shot while drawing a foul, resulting in a four-point play.
Watson was everything a senior leader should be to a team so full of young, inexperienced players.
"(He) was big," Krystkowiak said of Watson. "Jiggy did a good job with pick-and-roll, scoring, and making decisions. I thought he had some poise, and did a good job of leading us out there, making some nice plays."
"I just took the opportunities they gave me," Watson said. "They weren’t covering the pick-and-roll too well, and I had an opportunity, and I took it. Coach told me to take it. Everyone played hard, and collectively. Just little mistakes we made that we got to work on tomorrow."
Washburn had a career night after starting at center for David Foster, who is out indefinitely due to a foot injury.
"He was efficient, 6-for-10," Krystkowiak said of Washburn's performance. "There were a number of opportunities where we ran plays for him and he was wide open, and we couldn’t deliver the ball to him. We want to be able to have an inside presence and get him the ball.
"He’s up to the rebounds-per-minute pace that we need him, where he’s getting a rebound every three or four minutes instead of every eight minutes."
I thought we tried to generate big fancy plays instead of just keeping it to the simple stuff.
–Larry Krystkowiak
"I’m just trying to pick up on the boards, and create a situation so that when the ball comes to me, I can put our guys in position to do things," Washburn said. "But for how good of a game I had, I probably should have had three to four more rebounds, and should have finished a couple more plays. It was a good game for me, and it was a good way to start the season, but there's a lot of room for improvement."
Krystkowiak also spoke of room for improvement, and plenty of it.
"One of the areas that concerned was having that many turnovers—14 turnovers—for us playing against a team that didn’t do a lot of pressuring," he said. "I thought we tried to generate big fancy plays instead of just keeping it to the simple stuff."
Utah also struggled closing out on three-point shooters against a team that threw up 22 from beyond the arc.
"(SDCC is) undersized and has a lot of perimeter shooters," Krystkowiak said. "We had trouble with some of our matchups, giving up open threes."
Freshman Kareem Storey, who led the team in scoring in the Utes’ lone exhibition game last week, had another solid outing, scoring 10 points, including hitting 3-of-4 clutch free throws during the game's final 30 seconds.
Utah has seen the most success when pairing both Storey and Watkins together. The point-guard duo combined for 20 free throw attempts with their aggressive drives to the basket.
"The good thing about those guys is that they’ll battle," Krystkowiak said. "They might be a little smaller, but they’re not afraid to battle. That lineup has been pretty effective for us in some stretches. It allows Jiggy to get off the ball and play some two- guard."
"It makes it a lot easier for our team to get open shots," Storey said. "Jig is a good scorer, and I can get in the paint and get it to Wash and the shooters, and get everybody involved and just feed off each other."
Krystkowiak said the two will continue to see time on the court together.
Overall, the Utes will briefly enjoy their win, and get back to business Wednesday night at Boise State.
"It’s important that we savor the wins. The guys have been working very hard," Krystkowiak said. "I told the guys, ‘enjoy it for part of the night, and get ready. Tomorrow morning we’re going to lift at nine, and start thinking about Boise State.'"
