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Utah's Brandon Taylor missed two free throws, and BYU raced down the court, down three, in the final minute.

Tyler Haws got a good look at the three-pointer, but his shot was long with 32 seconds on the clock and the rebound went to Utah, which made three of four free throws in the last 27 seconds to pull out its first win in Provo since 2005.

It was that kind of night — just like in Maui — for the Cougars, who dropped to 7-3 with a 65-61 loss to No. 13 Utah (7-1).

Close, again, but no win.

Haws finished with 23 points, but it looked to me like he lost his legs in the final minutes — coming up short on several open jumpers.

"We didn't make shots when we needed to," said the BYU senior. "You have to give [Utah] all the credit in the world. They are good at what they do."

Delon Wright was sensational for Utah, posting a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds. The Cougars held Jakob Poeltl in check (7 points, 6 rebounds), but Utah's superior depth — 27 bench points to BYU's 16 — overcame an off night by the big freshman.

Both teams were missing key players. Utah was without Jordan Loveridge, while BYU was without Nate Austin, who somehow injured himself while stretching before the opening tip.

All three of BYU's losses have been close — double-overtime to San Diego State, overtime to Purdue and a four-pointer to Utah — but the team obviously has issues with its frontline. And they could get even worse, if Austin's hamstring injury is serious. He left the game 28 seconds in and didn't return. He will have an MRI on Thursday.

The Cougars were out rebounded 43-31 in Austin's absence, and almost all of their caroms came from guards — Kyle Collinsworth with nine and Tyler Haws with eight. And BYU got just two points from an inside player — a dunk by Corbin Kaufusi.

"Well, tonight that was kind of the opportunities that we had," Rose said of Haws and Kyle Collinsworth combining for 40 of the team's 61 points. "Ty was really good in the first half. Had some clean looks [in the second half], but they did a good job of kind of rushing him and getting him out of his pace. But we need better balance. That's a big part of the growth of this team, is to get our front line to catch up to where we are."

As for absorbing another close loss, Rose said he believes his team can still get it together and string together some wins, perhaps knock off Stanford and UMass when they visit before Christmas. As it is, Saturday's game at Weber State won't be a gimme, especially if Austin can't go.

"I think we are really close," Rose said. "I mean, that's a good basketball team right there, and we competed really hard and came close. it is really discouraging to your guys, because you want to win every game you play."

About the only statistic Utah didn't dominate was taking care of the ball. The Utes had 15 giveaways, compared to seven for the Cougars. That said, Delon Wright's steal and gorgeous behind-the-back dribble and dunk was the play of the game. He also had a couple steals on inbounds passes, including a three-point play where Utah scored five points in three seconds.

The Cougars only had eight fastbreak points, and were held far below their scoring average of 94 per game.

"We almost got it done, but we couldn't secure enough of those plays. That was the advantage we thought we had [forcing turnovers]," Rose said. "We thought we could turn them over a little bit. Get them to miss some shots and get out in transition and score. We made our run in the first half, it was off of defensive rebounds and turnovers.

But they did a much better job in second half of taking care of the ball."

A few fans are going to look at the free-throw situation (Utah got 30 free throws, BYU 10) and wonder about the officiating, but Rose downplayed that when asked in the post game news conference.

"Probably the shot selection [was the reason]," he said. "We jumped up and took a lot of quick jump shots, and they stayed with that thing and drove it to the rim and caused problems around the basket."