For 2nd straight year, Runnin' Utes eliminated early from Big 12 Tournament

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For the second straight year, Utah's run in the Big 12 men's basketball tournament came with a side of short ribs and an even shorter stay.

Jalen Celestine scored 19 points, and Moustapha Thiam added 14 points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots as Cincinnati eliminated the Runnin' Utes 73-66 in Tuesday's opening round of the Big 12 Tournament at the T-Mobile Center.

Baba Miler added 11 points, 14 rebounds and six assists for the Bearcats (18-14), who swept the season series from the Utes.

Keanu Dawes had 15 points and 12 rebounds for Utah (10-22); and teammate Seydou Traore added 12 points, five rebounds, a block and a steal for the Utes.

Terrence Brown poured in a game-high 22 points and six assists to lead Utah, which also gave up a 7-point lead midway through the first half a year ago in an 87-72 loss to UCF before the program hired storied alum Alex Jensen to his first college head coaching job.

But the Bearcats made the Utes' leading scorer, whose 19.8 points per game was the fourth-most in the Big 12 during the regular season, work for it. The junior from Minneapolis by way of Fairleigh Dickinson connected on just three of his first 12 attempts, finished 7-of-19 in all, and did much of his scoring with 8-of-9 free throws before helping Utah to 54.8% shooting in the second half.

By then, the 16th-seeded Utes were playing catch-up and couldn't come back.

"I have a lot of respect for Utah," said Cincinnati coach Wes Miller, whose team outrebounded the Utes 40-37 and scored 28 points in the paint. "We played them what feels like a month ago now, but they've been in every game. We had to play really well at home in the end to come back and win. And I thought we did a nice job, once we got the jitters out, of staying in out with our defense in the first half and then we started rebounding and running.

"I thought we played well there for a while. But give credit to them for making a run; they haven't been able to get buried all year."

Brown had 6 points early, and Utah held the Bearcats to just 3-of-12 shooting en route to a 15-6 lead midway through the first half.

Cincinnati responded with an 11-3 run, when the Utes shot just 1-of-15 from the field until Kendyl Sanders broke a three-minute scoring drought to keep Utah in front, 20-17.

But the Bearcats ended the half on a 15-2 run to take a 29-20 lead at the break.

Miller scored back-to-back buckets as the Bearcats used six straight makes and a 7-0 run to stretch the lead to 48-33 with 12:58 remaining.

Don McHenry was held scoreless on his first six attempts, until a floater with 9:53 remaining cut a 15-point deficit to 53-44 before a 3-pointer by Dawes trimmed it to 7 less than a minute later.

That combined with Brown, who scored 15 of his 22 points on 6-of-12 shooting after halftime, kept Utah from withering away.

"The mindset was that I don't want to be done playing," Brown said. "I hit one of those shots going into a timeout, and I told coach, I just don't want to lose.

"That's all I was playing for: not to lose."

McHenry's jumper with 42 seconds left cut the deficit as low as four, 70-66, as he finished with 8 points on 2-of-10 shooting.

But Thiam had 9 points in the second half, including one of five 3-pointers, and Cincinnati made 9-of-12 free throws to keep the comeback in check.

A year ago, the Utes' loss in Kansas City included an invitation to the College Basketball Crown — where Utah lost 86-84 to Butler in the inaugural edition of the tournament in Las Vegas.

That invitation will likely go to Cincinnati this year, if the Bearcats don't make the NCAA Tournament. Ranked 46th in the NET before Tuesday's games, the Bearcats are all-but guaranteed to be among the two highest-rated teams from the Big 12 if left out of the Big Dance.

That leaves a likely longer offseason for Utah — the last-place team in the Big 12 with No. 131 NET ranking — after Jensen's first season to reassess the program and make adjustments going forward.

"We'll go home, give them a day off, and then we'll have a team meeting and meet with them all individually," he said. "It's obviously interesting times, and we'll have continued conversations like we've had all year.

"It's always hard when it comes to an end. So we'll give them a day off, and then meet as a team and with each one of them — and go from there."

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