Utah Utes basketball: Utes 'not tough enough' to win

SALT LAKE CITY — No comeback magic followed Utah from the football stadium to the basketball arena.

Only a few hours after the Utes' football team staged a fourth-quarter rally to beat BYU, the basketball team could not pull off a similar feat after falling behind early against Oral Roberts.

Warren Niles scored 20 points and hit five 3-pointers to help the Golden Eagles survive a second-half rally by Utah and pull away for a 78-70 victory at the Huntsman Center on Saturday night. Damen Bell-Houlter added 18 points and Dominque Morrison chipped in 17 points for Oral Roberts (2-3), which led almost from start to finish against the Utes (3-2).

Utah forward Will Clyburn finished with 21 points and a career-high 10 rebounds to become the first Ute player to earn a double-double this season. Josh Watkins added 18 points for the Utes.

For Utah, it boiled down to toughness. The Golden Eagles were simply much more aggressive on both ends of the court for 40 minutes.

"We got to get tougher," Ute center Jason Washburn said. "They were tougher than us tonight, hands down. There's no better way to say that."

For a while, it looked like Utah had what it took to erase a miserable first-half effort.

The Utes overcame a huge deficit over a seven-minute stretch spanning both halves. They finally pulled to within a point at 46-45 with 15:13 left in the game after Clyburn and Chris Kupets combined to bury 3-pointers on three straight possessions to cap off a 10-1 spurt.

The Utes then tied things up at 50-50 on another 3-pointer from Shawn Glover and took only their second lead of the game when Kupets stepped into an 18-foot jumper to make it 52-50 with 10:44 remaining.

What turned things around for Utah during that stretch, as far as coach Jim Boylen was concerned, was a faster tempo and unselfish play.

"I just think we got the tempo where we wanted it," Boylen said. "I thought our energy level picked up. We made shots for a stretch there. That helps."

The turn in momentum proved to be short-lived. Oral Roberts scored three straight baskets in less than a minute — capped by a 3-pointer from Niles following a steal by Roderick Pearson — to make it 57-52.

Utah pulled within three at 70-67 when David Foster tipped in a missed jumper by Josh Watkins with 1:56 left. But Morrison answered with a layup on the other end and Bell-Holter put the final nail in the coffin when he buried a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired to make it 75-68 with 40.1 seconds left.