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SALT LAKE CITY — Scoring came at a premium on Saturday night as Utah welcomed in the USC Trojans to the Huntsman Center in the final home game of the regular season.
The Trojans built up a 10-point lead midway through the first half but couldn't really pull away from the Utes until late on a night when Utah shot 32% from the field. USC could, however, find its shot from 3-point range and managed 11 made 3-pointers on the night to eventually pull away for a 62-49 win over Utah.
"Certainly a tough weekend for us in a lot of respects, but they made enough plays," an emotional Crag Smith said. "It was just kind of an ugly game early on. I thought our guys were trying as hard as we could; we just looked a little sluggish and a little slow."
Senior Marco Anthony, who played in his last game at the Huntsman Center, said the general feel of the game felt off.
"We just kind of shot ourselves in the foot, especially early on," Anthony said. "I feel like there's a lot of things we could have controlled. A team like that, you can't play with them, you can't give them the lead that they had and just expect, hey, we're just going to come back.
"You just can't kind of play with your food, and I felt like we did that early on, and that really hurt us throughout the entirety of the game."
Much like its Thursday night game against UCLA, Utah outrebounded USC 42-36, limited its turnovers, and outscored the Trojans in the post 22-16, but USC's 48% shooting from deep was too much to handle. And, ultimately, Utah (17-13, 10-9 Pac-12) could find a consistent enough of an effort on either ends of the floor.
Utah took contested — and often ill advised — shots that didn't fall, the defense got lost multiple times and gave USC (21-8, 13-5 Pac-12) easy looks, and there was no general flow to the game as Utah players stood around and waited for somebody to do something — much to the frustration of Smith, who has "simplified" the game strategy in the absence of Gabe Madsen and Rollie Worster.
Still, the Utes managed to cut the Trojans' lead to two with 11:59 left for play in the game. But even that was short lived as the Trojans answered back on the next possession with a corner 3-pointer, and then built up the lead from there.
"We had some opportunities there late, but just couldn't get it done," Smith said. "It's gonna be a struggle when you shoot 32% for the game, you go 5-for-22 from the three — that really, really hurts — and then, obviously, the free-throw line going 4-for-11. You've got to be able to make those to just kind of sustain some runs."
Anthony finished with a team-high 11 points, six rebounds and three assists; and Branden Carlson supplied an additional 10 points and 10 rebounds in the loss.
The Trojans were led in scoring by guard Boogie Ellis, who had 16 points, which included four made 3-pointers. Drew Peterson added 14 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in the low-scoring affair.
Utah will get a week off before its regular season finale on the road next Saturday against Colorado.
