Rawson's 22 Points Lead Runnin' Utes Past Cougars, 82-69

Sunday, January 21

Salt Lake City, Utah

6:00 PM

University of Utah

12-7, 4-4

Washington State

9-10, 1-6

Washington State

Utah

Rawson's 22 Points Lead Runnin' Utes Past Cougars, 82-69

1/21/2018 8:52 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Utah-WSU | Box Score (PDF)

Bibbins notches another double-double with 13 points and 12 assists

SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah men's basketball team registered another home, downing the Washington Cougars, 82-69, in Pac-12 Conference play Sunday night at Huntsman Arena.

Utah wrapped up its two-game home stand sweeping both Washington schools, while moving to 12-7 overall and improving to 4-4 in league play. The Cougars fell to 9-10 on the season and are now 1-6 in the league.

Utah's Donnie Tillman opened the game scoring a driving lay-up, then put the Utes up 3-0 following an old-fashioned three-point-play, and the home team never looked back en route to the 13-point win.

Utah shot .516 (16-of-31) from the field in the first half, which included draining five three-pointers and going 5-of-5 from the charity stripe to take a 42-32 lead into the break. Gabe Bealer and Tyler Rawson both led the Utes at the half with nine points each and Sedrick Barefield followed with seven points. Justin Bibbins had just four points in the first period, but he did manage to dish out six assists in the half.

WSU would get back within six points after opening the second half with a 7-3 run, but 20-14 Utah run, which included the Utes hitting six three-pointers during the run, put the game out of reach. Utah led by as many as 18 points with a little more than five minutes to play.

Rawson led the way with 22 points – just three points shy of his career-high – as he shot 8-of-10 from the field overall and was 6-of-7 from three-point range. Bealer led the Utes off the bench with 15 points, going 6-of-11 from the field.

WSU won the battle of the boards, 35 to 34, but the Utes combined to record 22 assists, four blocked shots and nine steals.

Utah returns to the road next week with a trip to take on both Arizona schools. The Utes open a three-game road swing at Arizona State next Thursday, Jan. 25. Tip-off between the Utes and Sun Devils is set for 7:30 p.m. MT at Wells Fargo Arena.

GAME NOTES
• Utah pushed its winning streak to eight straight games over Washington State, while moving to 22-4 all-time when facing the Cougars. Utah is now 9-2 against WSU since joining Pac-12. Utah also pushed its record to 16-1 when playing the Cougars in Salt Lake City.
• Utah swept its two-game home swing against both Washington schools for the fifth straight season, dating back to the 2013-14 campaign. The only time that either Washington or WSU got a win in SLC came back in Utah's inaugural season in the Pac-12 back in 2011-12.
• Utah's bench outscored the WSU bench 22-7 in the first half. The Utes finished the game with 38 points of the bench, while WSU tallied just 23 points.
• Barefield bounced back with 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting. Four of his points came from the free throw line, with all four attempts coming after a WSU technical foul. He also collected a new season and career-high four steals on the night.
• Rawson set a new career-high with six three-pointers made, surpassing his previous mark of four three-pointers, which he made on four separate occasions. He also became the first Utah player to shoot at least 80 percent from downtown in a Pac-12 game since Brandon Taylor went 4-of-5 against Arizona back on Feb. 27, 2015.
• Bibbins, who notched a double-digit scoring effort for the ninth straight game, scored 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting. He also became the first Ute this season to register back-to-back double-doubles after recording a season-high 12 assists in the game. • Bibbins became the first Utah player to dish out 10 assists or more in a game since Taylor totaled 10 assists against USC back on Feb. 21, 2016.
• Jayce Johnson led the Utes on the boards with nine rebounds. He has led the Utes in rebounding in a team-high seven games this season.

POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Larry Krystkowiak
On returning to .500 in the Pac-12…
We talked about it when we left Southern California, taking care of business at home. It's probably as topsy-turvy of any of the 12 teams, maybe it's the steepest rollercoaster, a couple of feel-goods and then some not-so-feel-goods. It's all in line with the rest of the league in terms of a couple different things happening. We've always talked about you play 18 of them, you figure it out, and analyze and get ready for the Pac-12 tournament when the time comes. As proven in this league anything can happen. That's what we talked about when we left Southern California was lets get back home and take care of business, however you go about it, you can phrase it anyway you want. To be a .500 team in this conference, not that that's our goal, you have to take care of your home court and get some wins on the road too.

On how big the bench contribution was…
It was great. That's the definition and essence of a team. I like the change, Cedrick was really welcome to the idea. We had 5 guys in double figures but Cedrick as we all know is a scoring minded guard. I don't know if I woke up in the middle of the night a couple days ago and just thought 'Man he'd be a heck of a punch coming off the bench', and then you can run more things designed to get Ty shots and get Dave shots in the post. I think Justin's going to find his and then when you have to go to the bench here comes Cedrick, and then you can run some different plays. It brings some enthusiasm, at least after the first time doing it worked. He was excited about it. There wasn't a lot of disappointment in his voice coming off the bench and getting into that role. We saw some defense out of him that we haven't seen, too.

On Tyler Rawson's shooting…
There were three of Ty's threes that were set plays in particular, and we know that's his play. We executed them, and you're a heck of better coach when guys make them. Ty's been a warrior, of all our guys he's kind of an unsung guy. Assist to turnover he's one of the best in the league, he's a great passing 4-man, last I checked he was leading us in rebounding, a capable shooter, great defender, takes charges. He hasn't missed a practice, going back to when we did our foreign tour. It's a grind doing 10 practices abroad and then coming back and practicing in September. We've had a lot of injuries but Ty's kind of been a steady eddy, the warrior of the group, and does it kind of unassuming and just going about his business. He's an easy guy to cheer for.

Washington State Head Coach Ernie Kent
On Utah's three-point performance…
I thought there were several defensive breakdowns. We tried to do a couple different things to offset that, but our focus, and attention to detail on that end of the floor, was not there tonight and they made us pay.

On struggling to find an offensive rhythm…
I think anytime you become stagnant offensively it hurts and it hurts your momentum and hurts your energy. The reason for that is, we did not do the job defensively in the game. We didn't give ourselves a chance to get out and run in transition to get some easy buckets. The game became a half-court game and in a half-court game, those guys are good enough to break you down offensively off the dribble will shine. Those guys that need to get out and run in transition to get their looks, Viont'e Daniels and Carter Skaggs, they needed more looks on the floor and they didn't get a chance to do that. Everything came back to me what went on at the defensive end of the floor. When we can get stops without running, we are very good. When we don't, we become a stagnant offensive team.

On putting together a full game…
I have to keep reminding myself that Malachi [Flynn] was a starter last year on a senior-led team, four seniors. He just had to come and do his thing and he was okay. Robert Franks and Viont'e Daniels were role players and now all the sudden I have a team where those are the only three guys who have been in the arena on this floor. That's with this arena, Colorado, Oregon and Oregon State, and versus Arizona here. I don't have that experience with those guys yet to understand what it takes to win at this level. You are kind of learning on the fly and that's not making an excuse, that's the adversity that we have to deal with and grow with in that adversity.