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BERKELEY, Calif.— After dropping each of their first seven road or neutral-site games by an average margin of 26.3 points, the Runnin' Utes came within three points of beating Stanford Thursday night in arguably the best game they've played on the road this season.
Utah (4-12, 1-3) will look to keep up the competitive road play when it visits Cal (14-4, 4-1), Saturday night at 8:30 p.m., in search of its first road win of the season.
It will be the 18th meeting between the Utes and Golden Bears, with Cal having the slight edge in the all-time series, 9-8. Cal won the last meeting, 72-69, in 2008 on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer in the Huntsman Center.
Prior to the Cal win, Utah won the previous two match-ups, however, including a 67-65 win at Berkeley in 2007.
Senior point guard Josh Watkins leads the Utes in scoring at 15.7 points per game with 4.9 assists. He ranks fourth in the Pac-12 in scoring and second in assists per game. Watkins has posted double-digit outings 13 times this season in 15 games played, including five games with 20 points or more.
Junior center Jason Washburn leads the team on the boards with 6.6 rebounds per game. He's averaging 10.6 points, and has scored in double digits in 10 out of 16 games this season. Washburn is hitting 58.3 percent from the floor, the best percentage on the team and fourth-best in the conference. He is also making 78.3 percent of his free throws, highest on the team and eighth-highest in the Pac- 12.
Junior guard Chris Hines is coming off a career night in which he posted a career-high 21 points on 9-of-17 from the field, including three 3-pointers. He also stole the ball twice, tying a career high, while playing 38 minutes — also a career high. Hines is averaging just under eight points per game, and the Utes will hope to get another solid performance from him Saturday night.
Junior forward Dijon Farr has been shooting very efficiently as of late, hitting 57 percent from the field over the last seven games, improving his overall field- goal percentage to 51.2 percent on the season, including an even 50 percent from beyond the arc. Farr posted 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting at Stanford Saturday night.
Utah got its Pac-12 conference play off to a rough start, suffering a 73-33 beatdown to Colorado. The Utes regrouped, however, and have been very competitive in each of their last three games, beating Washington State in overtime and taking Washington and Stanford down to the wire.
Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak hopes to turn some of the recent close losses into wins in future match-ups.
"There are no little things," he said. "People think that a block out or remembering to do something is just a little thing. But when you add up all those little things over the course of a game...it ends up being a couple point game at the end."
One little thing the Utes struggled with at Stanford was from the free-throw line, where they went just 1-for-11 in a game they ended up losing by just three points.
Despite the dismal percentage, Utah was still played its best road game of the season and was in the game down to the final seconds against a good team.
The Utes will need to play even better to compete with a another good team in Cal.
Sophomore guard Allen Crabbe leads the Golden Bears with 16.1 points and six boards per contest. Senior guard Jorge Guitierrez scores 14.3 points with 5.1 rebounds and 4.2 assits, and sophomore guard Justin Cobbs averages 12.8 points while dishing out 4.6 dimes.
Cal went 10-3 in nonconference play, with its only losses at the hands of top-25 teams: No. 9 Missouri, No. 12 UNLV and No. 22 San Diego State.
The Golden Bears then got off to a 4-1 start in conference play with home wins over USC and UCLA before falling at Oregon State, 92-85. They got back on track by winning at Oregon, 77-60, followed by a 57-50 home win over Colorado Thursday night.
The Utes have faced some tough match-ups outside of the Huntsman Center, but none as daunting as its test at Haas Pavillion in Berkeley. Cal is yet to lose a home game, going a perfect 12-0 over the first two months of the season.
Utah, on the other hand, is 0-8 in games away from Huntsman Center this season.
But recent trends suggest that despite the contrasted home and away records, the Utes will compete, and may even have a chance to steal a big win in Berkeley. Utah's last three contests have been decided by an average margin of three points.
To Krystkowiak, it all comes down to effort, regardless of playing home or away.
"There is a correlation: When you play hard, you are in games," he said simply.
The 8:30 p.m. tip-off can be heard on the radio at 700 AM.
