Comments about ‘Utah Utes basketball: Turnovers costly for the Utes at Washington State’

Turnovers have been an ongoing problem for the Utes for many years. The 17 turnovers at WSU were only a little higher than the 13+ turnovers Utah has averaged this season (152nd in the country).

The problem is compounded by Utah's slow-down offense which results in fewer possessions for Utah and makes each turnover that much more critical. When you pass the ball around for 30 seconds on every possession, it creates more opportunities for a bad pass, an offensive foul, or a steal by the opposing team to turn the ball over.

Washington's last opponent, Colorado, only had 11 turnovers against the Huskies, but still lost by 10. It'll be interesting to see if the Utes can keep their turnovers closer to their season average against Washington which had 6 steals against Colorado.

CG, I have to say you are spot on about the turnover issue relating to their style of play right now. The aim and goal of it is to execute cleanly and make the opposing defense lose focus chasing everyone around throughout the length of the shot clock and leave a guy open, which usually leads to more and more of the same as the game goes on, as was the case in their best game against Boise State. In that game, they shot 68% from the field with 20 assists. Unfortunately, since then, the execution just hasn't been as clean and some guys aren't going full speed on offensive sets, which messes up the timing for everybody. Until that changes, I don't see us winning any conference games. When it does, I think we have a good chance in any of them.