Utah basketball: Utes continue to struggle on road, fall to Arizona State Sun Devils

TEMPE, Ariz. — Utah's lengthy skid away from the Huntsman Center continued Thursday with a 57-52 loss at Arizona State. The Utes (5-19, 2-10) have now lost 14 consecutive games at road or neutral sites.

However, unlike most of the setbacks, this one wasn't decided until the final minute.

Utah rallied from a double-digit deficit down the stretch and made it 54-52 on a 3-pointer by Kareem Storey with 47 seconds remaining. ASU, however, weathered the rally with free throws from Carrick Felix and Chris Colvin to preserve the victory.

"We battled the whole game," said Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak. "Our guys played really hard defensively."

In the end, though, Krystkowiak said it came down to little things like missed block outs and ill-time fouls.

There were a couple of big things as well, he acknowledged, like difficulty putting the ball in the basket and a 40-22 rebounding disparity.

Krystkowiak, however, said the bottom line is the Utes captured some road mentality about getting better and what it takes to succeed. He was proud of how his guys battled.

"There's no negative momentum. It's all positive," Krystkowiak noted. "We're going to continue to battle and fight, scratch and claw, going down the stretch."

The Utes, who face Arizona Saturday in Tucson, shot just 30.4 percent from the floor against the Sun Devils. Although Krystkowiak didn't think there was enough movement against ASU's matchup zone, he noted that Utah's lack of depth may have been a factor with the focus on defense.

"I just think it was one of those nights. The basket was opening up for us and we weren't hitting shots. So it was kind of tough," said guard Chris Hines, who led the Utes with 10 points. "Our defense kept us in the game so it really helped us on that side. But to win that game we needed to knock down some shots and we just didn't."

Cold shooting cost the Utes a chance to ice the Sun Devils in the first half. The frosty circumstances led to a 23-18 halftime deficit.

Utah made just 5-of-24 shots from the field over the first 20 minutes. The Utes made just one basket after building a 13-8 lead on an old-fashioned 3-point play by Javon Dawson with 7:01 to play in the half. They didn't score another point for nearly 51/2 minutes as ASU seized control of the game. The Sun Devils reeled off 15 straight points to take a 23-13 advantage.

It stayed that way until Utah closed out the half with a 5-0 run to tighten things up a bit.