Utah Utes fail to continue momentum, lose at OSU

CORVALLIS, Ore. — So much for a carryover. The Utah Utes played more like they had a hangover in their first outing since last week's upset of Stanford. They didn't put up much of a battle early on in a 77-67 loss to Oregon State at Gill Coliseum.

And it proved costly.

"This one obviously got away from us early. Even though we battled back in the second half, cut it to 10 to finish the game, it was never really close," said Utah center Jason Washburn. "We were never really put up a fight.."

Although things improved late in the second half, he acknowledged, Utah "got a nice little wake up call in the first half."

The Beavers (16-13, 6-11) never trailed in dominating the Utes (6-23, 3-14). They built a 36-15 halftime lead and held distinct statistical advantages across the board — including points in the paint (22-6), rebounding (24-13), second-chance opportunities (9-1), bench productivity (11-3), fast-break scoring (8-2) and points off of turnovers (9-4).

Utah veterans Chris Hines and Washburn, the standouts in the win over the Cardinal, were held scoreless in the first half. The Utes, who didn't score basket for the final 9:22, shot just 21.7 percent (5-of-23) over the first 20 minutes.

"I don't think it was a hangover," Hines said. "I think their length really cornered us in halfcourt and we were taking quick shots, not really good shots. Once we settled down it was too late."

Oregon State, meanwhile, connected on 14-of-27 attempts in the opening half to quickly put the game out of reach. For good measure, the Beavers opened the second half with a 7-0 run to make a bad situation even worse for the Utes.

Although the deficit eventually swelled to 31 points as Oregon State completed a two-game of Utah this season, the Utes did outscore the Beavers 52-41 in the second half to make the outcome look respectable.

"If we had that same intensity in the first half we would have won the game," Hines said.

Utah, however, played far from it in the opening minutes.

"We were about as selfish in the first half as I've seen us in a long time," said Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak. "We kind of ran the while gamut of all the different options of how to shoot yourself in the foot in the first half. It just wasn't the kind of basketball that we need to be playing."