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PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas — The Runnin' Utes dropped to 1-3 on the season after losing their opener of the Battle 4 Atlantis to Harvard (4-0), 75-47, Thursday night.
Keith Wright and Corbin Miller led the Harvard Crimson with 13 points each, and three players tallied seven rebounds apiece for a team that logged minutes for 17 different players. Harvard advances in the winners' bracket and will face Florida State Friday, while the Utes will take on UMass.
Harvard scored the game's first five points on its way to claiming an early 15-2 lead, and never looked back.
Nearly 15 minutes of the first half went by before Josh Watkins' layup finally put Utah in double-digits to make the score 34-11.
Two 10-0 runs by Harvard in the first half led to a 49-24 halftime score. After giving up 49 first half points, Utah only managed to score 47 points in the entire game.
Harvard built its largest lead of the game when Laurent Rivard hit back-to-back threes with just over three minutes remaining to put the Crimson up by 33.
Freshman Blake Wilkinson scored a career-high 12 points and grabbed eight rebounds for the Utes. Watkins also scored 12 points to go along with six rebounds and three assists.
Chris Hines brought his usual energy off th bench and scored 11 points, including 3-of-6 from the three-point line.
Starters Anthony Odunsi and Cedric Martin went a combined 0-for-8 from the field, while sophomore Javon Dawson didn't attempt a shot in his first career start.
The Utes never led and were outplayed in virtually every statistical category possible. They were outrebounded 37- 26, while giving up 12 offensive rebounds. Utah shot only 36 percent from the field and just 58 percent from the free-throw line, while Harvard shot 44 percent from the field and 75 percent from the line. The Utes turned the ball over 16 times to the Crimson's eight.
The Utes will have to have a short memory as they face UMass Friday a 7:30 p.m.
The Minutemen are coming off a tough loss of their own after losing to No. 20 Florida State, 73-53, Thursday.
UMass was unbeaten coming into the tournament after posting double-digit wins over each of their first four opponents, including an 86-42 thrashing of Boston College before falling to FSU.
Like the Utes, the Minutemen were outrebounded and outshot in their tournament opener against the Seminoles. In addition, they went 2-for-23 from beyond the arc.
Four UMass players are averaging double figures led by sophomore guard Chaz Williams with 17.3. Junior forward Terrell Vinson is scoing 13 points per game, while Sampson Carter and Javorn Farrell are scoring 10.8 per game.
In the loss to FSU, sophomore forward Raphiael Putney led UMass with 11 points off the bench.
The winner of the Utah/UMass matchup will play the winner of the UNC-Ashville/College of Charleston in the fifth- place game on Saturday. The losers of each game will also face off Saturday in the seventh-place contest to wrap up the tournament.
