Utah Utes basketball: Seniors have rough final game at U.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah coach Jim Boylen honored departing seniors Luka Drca and Kim Tillie by starting them in their home finale against BYU.

It was hardly a calculated risk.

After all, things worked out pretty well the last time they opened a game on the floor together. It was Jan. 2 when the Utes upset Louisiana State, 61-59 in Baton Rouge.

Tillie had knee surgery shortly thereafter, however, and has been relegated to reserve duty ever since. The Utes, meanwhile, entered Wednesday's game with just seven wins in 14 games during that span.

"I started Kim Tillie because he's a senior and he's been in this program. He's a good kid and a good student," Boylen explained. "And Utah across his chest has meant something to him."

Could Tillie's return to the starting lineup turn things around for Utah? Would it inspire another LSU-type of success? What about sending the nationally ranked Cougars home feeling blue?

In a word, no. Check that, how about no, no and no.

Poor shooting plagued the Utes throughout their 71-51 loss to the Cougars. They wound up connecting on just 14-of-52 shots from the field.

"We had a difficult time getting into a rhythm offensively," said Boylen, who added that a bad start and 13 first-half turnovers put the Utes in a hole that proved to be insurmountable. They trailed 36-24 at the break.

And things grew worse in the second half. Utah missed its first 12 shots after the intermission.

"(We) could not get a shot to fall," Boylen said. "(We) could not get a bucket to kind of steady the team."

The misfires allowed BYU to pull away handily. The Cougars extended their lead to 29 at one point in the second half.

"The ball didn't go in the hoop," Boylen said when asked about the offensive inefficiency in a terse exchange with a local columnist.

The Utes shot just 26.9 percent from the floor — the lowest in Boylen's three-year tenure as Utah's head coach. The previous low was 29.5 percent last season at BYU.

Drca, who connected on just one of his eight shots, said the Utes didn't deserve to have the ball go in the basket — despite great fan support and an unbelievable atmosphere.

"It's a simple thing," he said. "We didn't play together like we talked about before the game."

Tillie, who was 0-for-3 from the field but 6-for-6 from the foul line, had similar thoughts.

"Our shot selection wasn't really good. We turned the ball over, played careless. When we had to finish plays at the rim we weren't tough enough," he said. "We just need to make open shots and play together more, not take bad shots and pass it to the open guy."

For the first time this season the Utes failed to have a double-figure scorer. Chris Hines topped 11 scorers with nine points.

e-mail: dirk@desnews.com