Late Second Half Surge Leads Men's Basketball to Victory in Pac-12 Opener

Thursday, January 2

Salt Lake City, UT

6:30 PM

University of Utah

10-3,1-0Pac-12

Oregon State

10-3,0-1Pac-12

Oregon St.

Utah

Photo by: Steve C. Wilson

Late Second Half Surge Leads Men's Basketball to Victory in Pac-12 Opener

1/2/2020 9:51 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Highlights Timmy Allen Postgame Interview

The Utah men’s basketball used a second half surge to pull away late for an 81-69 win over Oregon State Thursday night.

SALT LAKE CITY – A late second-half surge by the University of Utah men's basketball team propelled the Utes to an 81-69 victory over visiting Oregon State Thursday night in the Pac-12 Conference opener inside the Jon M. Huntsman Center.

The 81 points Thursday night is the second-highest point total in a Pac-12 opening game for Utah since joining the league in 2011-12 and is second only to last season's 96-86 win over Arizona State.

Utah (10-3, 1-0 Pac-12) had a slower start to the game offensively than it had wanted, trailing early to the Beavers but picked it up midway through the first half thanks to the long ball after trailing 11-4 to open the game.

An emphatic baseline dunk from Timmy Allen from Rylan Jones cut the Beavers' lead to 15-13 heading into the 11:56 media break. After turnover on the first possession out of the timeout, Allen drove hard to the rack and connected despite contact with a little English off the glass to tie the game up at 15-15.

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— Utah Basketball?? (@UtahMBB) January 3, 2020

The Mesa, Ariz., product then gave the Utes the go-ahead lead, 20-19, before Jones drilled a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession to give Utah the 23-19 advantage – forcing yet another OSU timeout with 8:13 on the clock. The scoring continued for the U and was capped off by a bucket from Allen to close out the 12-0 run before Oregon State (10-3, 0-1 Pac-12) brought the lead back down to 29-25.

After both teams traded short spurts, OSU got within 36-32 of the Utes before a breakaway triple from Both Gach gave Utah the 39-32 edge heading into the locker room. As a team, the U saw a lot of success from downtown hitting 6-of-9 in the first frame and at one point was 5-of-6 from deep.

Neither team had a great start to the second half with Utah making just 2-of-8 while Oregon State hit 3-of-7 from the field as Utah held serve at the first media break (15:26), 45-39. Utah couldn't push its lead into the double-digit realm as Oregon State got within 54-51 of the Utes on a steal and lay-in from Antoine Vernon at the 10:45 mark.

Watch out @TutBoth comin' thru??????

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— Utah Basketball?? (@UtahMBB) January 3, 2020

The Utes were once again in a position to take a double-digit lead, but a pump fake and 3-pointer from Riley Battin was short-lived as OSU cut the lead back down to 62-55 before Gach finished at the rim for a 64-55 advantage with 6:47 remaining. Utah finally got over the hump after the media break and took the 70-55 lead thanks to a 6-0 run on a pair of steals and never looked back en route to an 81-69 victory over Oregon State.

Allen picked up his third double-double of the season, finishing with 25 points and 10 boards on 13-of-15 shooting from the line. Gach added 17 points of his own with six boards while Jones scored 14 points of his own with five assists, four rebounds and three steals. Meanwhile, Battin and Mikael Jantunen chipped in with eight points and five rebounds apiece in the win.

A trio of Runnin' Utes led @UtahMBB to the win over Oregon State. ???????

Timmy Allen (25 points), Both Gach (17 points) and Rylan Jones (14 points) all scored in double figures in the home dub. pic.twitter.com/9zeYPC5fJ0
— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) January 3, 2020

BY THE NUMBERS
Utah now moves to 19-13 all-time against the Beavers while Coach Krystkowiak moves to 7-6 all-time against Oregon State … Coach Krystkowiak is also now 5-3 all-time against his former teammate with the win … the Utes are now 5-4 all-time in conference openers since joining the Pac-12 in 2011-12 … the five rebounds by Jaxon Brenchley is a new season-high for the freshman … Allen's 13 made free-throws and 15 attempts were a new career-high … Allen has now scored 20-plus points in 8-of-13 games so far.

QUOTABLE
Head Coach Larry Krystkowiak
Coach K on the game, out rebounding OSU and slowing down Kelly…
"Well, he's a load and is the country's leading shot blocker. I don't think we nullified him, I thought we were actually quite intimidated to start the game and it took a minute for us to realize that the extra pass around the rim was key and I thought the key to the game for us was making up our minds to guard. There was one six or eight minute period of that game that felt like it wasn't very comfortable and that's when we chose not to guard. We left shooters open, got out and scraped a little bit but that's a really good offensive team with two of the elite players in our conference in Tinkle and Thompson and we made them earn everything that they got."

Coach K on only missing three free throws and seeing progress from his guys…
"We were just a few percentage points, and I talk about it every year, we shoot a lot of free throws in practice and we were just a few percentage points behind Arizona and I want to lead the conference in free throw shooting. Our guys spend some time, we have some guys that are locked in and a lot of a free throw is what's between the ears and our guys step up to the free throw line and they believe it's going to go in. That's key for us and you can add up any of these little things over the course of the season and you certainly want to be able to get fouled, be there enough, but on the flip side you need to knock them down."

Coach K on the success they had pushing the pace against OSU…
"Yeah, we've gotten away from it and that was the first thing we worked on when we got back from Christmas. We had a number of guys that thought they were our point guards that were jogging and Booth and Timmy and Rylan were all waiting for it and we cleaned that up. I think our bigs did a good job running the floor. It takes all five guys to be committed to that and it's a big emphasis for us.

Sophomore Forward Timmy Allen
On starting out conference play with a win…
"It's good to get the first win out of the way. We didn't come out how we would have liked to, but we picked it up as the game went on. We pushed them in transition, we have the advantage with the altitude, and it was fun."

Sophomore Guard Both Gach
On not letting the lead slip away…
"We were locked in in the second half. We had one five minute stretch where we were sloppy, but the coaches reminded us we just needed to finish the game and close things out, and we did."

UP NEXT
The Runnin' Utes now turn their attention to No. 4/6 Oregon, who they will welcome into the Jon M. Huntsman this Saturday, Jan. 4, for a 3 p.m. tip on the Pac-12 Network with J.B. Long on the call and Don MacLean serving as the analyst.

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