Utah Utes basketball: No. 15 Lobos nip Utes in overtime

SALT LAKE CITY — As Jim Boylen put it, the Utah basketball team, "battled and battled and battled" and "fought back and fought back."

In the end, however, 15th-ranked New Mexico was too much for the scrappy Utes, prevailing 68-65 in overtime Saturday night at the Huntsman Center.

For the Utes it was an uphill climb all night, but they fought back from a six-point deficit to tie the score in the final minutes, then sent the game to overtime on Carlon Brown's 3-pointer with 2.3 seconds left in regulation.

However the Utes ended up on the wrong side of a tough call in overtime that would have given them the lead and Brown couldn't duplicate his feat of tying the game with a 3-pointer at the end of overtime.

With the victory, the Lobos improved to 23-3 overall and a league-leading 9-2 in Mountain West Conference play, while the Utes dropped to 11-13 and 4-6.

The Utes did the job defensively, holding the Lobos to just 36.4 percent from the field and holding the Lobos' leading scorer Darington Hobson to 1-of-10 shooting and eight points. However, the Utes couldn't muster enough offense themselves and finished with 39 percent shooting and just 5 of 22 from 3-point range.

"We just didn't make enough offensive plays to win the game," said Boylen.

Marshall Henderson led the Utes with 21 points, but after missing just two shots Wednesday night at TCU, he only managed 6 of 18 overall and 2 of 10 from 3-point range. Brown scored 18 and Luka Drca had 16.

Dairese Gary scored 19 to lead the Lobos, while Roman Martinez scored 15, including a big 3-pointer with 1:16 left to give New Mexico the lead for good at 65-62.

After Brown missed at the other end, Hobson made a pair of free throws to extend the lead to five. But Henderson sank a 3-pointer with 13 seconds left and after Gary missed one of two free throws with 12 seconds left, the Utes had one more chance.

However, Henderson's long three bounded away and Brown missed, after hurrying out to 3-point range.

"I didn't know how much time I had and I kind of rushed it," Brown said.

Where the Utes lost it was on a couple of key plays around the 2-minute mark.

The Utes appeared to take the lead when Drca hit Foster with a lob for a dunk, but the basket was waved off when Drca was called with his fifth foul on the drive.