Cowboy-upped: Utah's winning streak snapped by Wyoming

LARAMIE, Wyo. — It had to happen sooner or later. You knew Utah wasn't going to win every single game under interim coach Kerry Rupp.

But a loss to last-place Wyoming?

Sure enough, the Utes' four-game winning streak under Rupp came to an abrupt halt Monday night as the Cowboys defeated the Utes 74-65 before 7,712 at the Arena-Auditorium.

The loss dropped the Utes to 7-3 in the Mountain West Conference, two games behind Air Force in the loss column with the Falcons coming to the Huntsman Center Saturday afternoon.

The Cowboys, playing with more resolve that the Utes most of the night, broke a four-game losing streak and improved to 3-7 in MWC play and 10-13 overall.

"They came out with the eye of the tiger and we didn't match their aggressiveness," said Rupp. "They hit the boards hard and were ready to play."

Afterwards, Rupp must have said 10 times that the Utes didn't get the ball inside enough, which was true. But the big difference in the game came at the guard position where the Cowboys starters outscored Utah's by a whopping 37 to 11.

After combining for 46 points in a win over Colorado State Saturday night, Utah's Nick Jacobson and Tim Drisdom could only manage eight and three points, respectively. Jacobson had perhaps his worst shooting night as a Ute, making just 3 of 17 from the field, while Drisdom only shot twice, making one.

Meanwhile Wyoming's guards led the way as Jay Straight, coming off a five-point night against BYU, scored 22 points and freshman Mikel Watson scored a career-high 15 points, including three 3-pointers.

Wyoming coach Steve McClain said his team was very aware of Utah's two guards, especially Drisdom's offense over the past four games.

"We made up our minds we were not going to give (Drisdom) a gap,"

he said. "We tried to trap him every time he came off a pick and make him throw it to someone else. Mikel did a really good job of not giving Drisdom any opening to shoot tonight."

Against Jacobson, the Cowboys tried to "never give him a clean look," said McClain.

Aside from the guard play, the Utes still had a chance to win this one with Tim Frost playing his best game of the year, scoring 19 points, including 4 of 6 from 3-point range, and Andrew Bogut and freshman Justin Hawkins each scoring 14 points. Also the Utes shot 49 pecent from the field, compared to just 39.3 percent for the Cowboys.

However, the big difference came on the glass, where the Cowboys outrebounded the Utes 37 to 33 and grabbed 18 offensive boards, which led to 20 second-chance points.

"You can't win when you give a team 18 offensive rebounds," said Rupp.