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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s three-game road trip was capped off by an 83-64 loss to Arizona State Saturday, making it the program’s fourth-straight loss of the season.
Utah (10-7, 1-4), which had been blown out in its previous two road losses in conference play to Arizona and Colorado, kept the game in single digits throughout the first half of the game — Arizona State (11-7, 2-3) led by as much as 9 points late in the first half — but the Utes couldn’t bring enough consistent play to challenge the home team.
The Sun Devils jumped out of the halftime break on a 10-2 run and built up a 14-point lead on three Utah turnovers to outpace the Utes 54-41 in the second half. Utah cut Arizona State’s lead to as low as 7 points midway through the second half, but the Sun Devils staved off a pair of Utah runs and built up its largest lead of the game of 19 points.
Arizona State was led by Rob Edwards’ season-high of 24 points, including 5-of-6 from behind the 3-point line, on a night when the Sun Devils shot 52% from the field and 61% (11-of-18) from behind the arc. Remy Martin, the team’s leading scorer on the season, finished with 20 points and six assists.
Martin dictated the tempo all night for the Sun Devils, which included a bucket five seconds into the game off the game’s tipoff, but couldn’t get the bulk of his scoring done until the second half, where he scored 14 points in the half.
Timmy Allen, the Pac-12’s leading scorer who averages 19.9 points per game, opened up the contest shooting just 1-of-8 from the field before making his second bucket of the game late in the first half. Allen led Utah in scoring in the loss with 18 points and 10 rebounds, but only had 7 points at the end of the first half.
Mikael Jantunen was the only other Ute to score in double figures on the night. He added 10 points and five rebounds in the loss. Both Gach, the team’s second-leading scorer on the season, only managed 3 points in the loss. Gach finished the three-game road trip with a combined 12 points.
Utah shot just 29% from the field in the first half that included a poor 1-of-10 from behind the 3-point line, but finished the night shooting 39% from the field. Utah’s 3-point shooting opened up late in the game behind a pair of 3-pointers by Jaxon Brenchley and Riley Battin to cut Arizona State’s lead to 8 points with just over five minutes left in the game. The Utes finished shooting 6-of-24 from deep.
Utes head coach Larry Krystkowiak was ejected with 1:23 left in the game after arguing with the refs following a dunk by freshman Matt Van Komen. After the freshman’s dunk, Van Komen received a technical for coming down on an Arizona State players’ shoulders, who was underneath the rim.
The Utes return home next week to take on Washington and Washington State. The Utes return to action at the Huntsman Center on Thursday at 6 p.m. MST against Washington. The game will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Network.
