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SALT LAKE CITY — With Utah down 25 points with 15 minutes left in the game, a member of Utah's student section held up a sign that said: "There's still hope."
The optimism was admirable, but there was little hope left for the Runnin' Utes in the final home game of the season against the visiting Colorado Buffaloes. Utah gave it an effort at the end and went on a 14-2 run to cut the lead to 13, but the deficit was too much to make up in the end for the Utes.
Colorado's Jabari Walker, who finished with 22 points, 12 rebounds and five assists, had his way early against the Utes and Evan Battey finished them off with a career high 27 points and six rebounds to beat the home team 84-71 on senior night.
The loss locked Utah (11-19, 4-16 Pac-12) into the No. 11 seed in the upcoming Pac-12 men's basketball tournament at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas next week.
The Buffaloes finished the night shooting 61% from 3-point range on 14 made shots from deep and 51% from the field. Utah struggled to get through on defensive rotations and gave Colorado (20-10, 12-8 Pac-12) several open looks from behind the arc on a night where the defensive effort was suboptimal. It all meant easy opportunities for Colorado to add to its lead.
"Obviously we didn't do a good job at all defending — well, defending period — but defending the three especially," Utah head coach Craig Smith said. "It's always fun — not fun — but people always want to talk about offense, but to win you have to be able to guard people, and we didn't do any of the sort in the first half — gave up 50 points.
"At the start of the game when we called the timeout, they were almost at 2 points of possession, which is putrid, and so you can't win games like that."
Smith said his team needed to do better at getting Colorado to "feel" the defender — make the shooter sense the presence. Instead, it was Utah giving Colorado too much time to get open looks with little fear that a shot would be contested.
"You've got to be able to bother the ball, guard you a yard, get a hand up, have shot pressure, and they've got to feel you," Smith said. "If they're not feeling you, man, like this league is too good, teams are too good, these players are too good — they're gonna make you pay."
And Colorado certainly made Utah pay, especially with bigs Walker and Battey, who combined for 49 points and nine of the team's 14 triples on the night.
It was a dominant performance by Colorado, who finished the night with 18 assists on 30 made baskets and locked up a first-round bye and a No. 4 seed in the conference tournament.
The Buffaloes jumped on Utah early and quickly built up a 10-point lead that ballooned to 18 point without any real fight from the home team. In fact, it took Utah 10 minutes of play to score in double figures — much of that due to the stellar defensive performance from Colorado.
It was the antithesis to Utah's lackluster defensive performance, particularly in the first half. The Utes improved a bit in the second half in its defensive sets, but not enough to put a dent into Colorado's mission to finish out the season with 20 wins.
"They're playing great, obviously," Smith said. "You can see that they came out throwing haymakers at us and we didn't have much of an answer early on. They're playing great."
David Jenkins Jr., who was honored as one of the seniors on the team, finished the night with 18 points and six rebounds to lead the Utes. Jenkins had 14 points in the first half that included three 3-pointers to keep the game from being even more lopsided than it already was, though Colorado controlled a 21-point halftime lead.
Center Branden Carlson added 18 points, including two 3-pointers, and three rebounds, and Lazar Stefanovic finished with 12 points to round out the Utes that scored in double figures on a night when Utah shot 44% from the field.
Utah will play Washington Wednesday (9:30 p.m. MST, Pac-12 Networks) in the first round of the conference tournament.
