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San Juan, Puerto Rico • With a two-point lead and 4.6 seconds left, most Utah fans would've fainted last year at the thought of Jakob Poeltl needing to make free throws.

On Sunday night: Four went up, four went in.

The sophomore capped a career night of 32 points with four straight free throws that finished off the Temple Owls for a 74-68 Utah victory Sunday night at Puerto Rico. The recipient of an intentional foul, then another foul on the inbound play, Poeltl made all of his attempts at the charity stripe to seal a third-place finish at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off with 4.6 seconds left.

With those four straight free throws, Poeltl finished the night 12 for 14 from the line — not bad for a guy who shot 44.4 percent from the line as a freshman.

"I was cool," Poeltl said. "I was just focused on making them. There wasn't anything going through my mind."

Poeltl produced a textbook's worth of post moves, spinning and driving while shooting 10 for 12 from the floor. When he spread his hands wide to indicate he was open, his teammates almost always found him, and he almost always found the bottom of the net.

A gritty AAC defense, Temple had a lot of answers for things Utah did: The Owls held Utah to 40 percent from the floor and 26 percent from deep. But they had no answer for 7 feet of sure-footed, soft-shooting Austrian muscle.

"He's playing a lot stronger," Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak said. "Now he's putting people in a bad way. Do they double-team him if he's playing slow and stronger? He's going to garner some more opportunities to get there."

For having such an advantage in the paint, the Utes had to sweat out a tight finish.

The Utes led most of the second half by a sizable gap, but it swung close on a four-minute run by the Owls. They scored on a jumper, two 3-pointers and a dunk, all unanswered, that turned an 11-point lead into a 1-point thriller with five and a half minutes to go.

Temple finally erased Utah's lead fully with 3:06 to play, leading to a back-and-forth affair. Poeltl made a huge play at the rim, rolling one in and then hitting a foul shot afterward, but the Utes struggled to capitalize on the two-point lead, and it was tied again with 58 seconds left.

With 28 seconds left, Brandon Taylor hit a key fadeaway 2-pointer as the shot clock was about to expire, giving Utah a 70-68 lead Temple's Daniel Dingle was fouled on the other end with 15 seconds to go, but couldn't make either of his attempts. It was the last time Temple had a chance to even the score.

While there were concerns — including continued dry spells on 3-point shots — the Utes were able to leave Puerto Rico on a high note and bounce back from a Miami shellacking.

"We bounced back and we got to ourselves," Taylor said. "We really came together and we really tried to execute our game plan as perfect as we could."

Poeltl was dominant from the start, hitting three of his first four shots and getting to the line, where he was 7 for 7 in the first half. Drawing foul after foul, his length was an unbeatable weapon against the Owls.

The rest of the team was slower to catch up. It took almost 10 minutes for anyone beside the center to hit a field goal, and almost 12 minutes before the Utes hit a 3-pointer.

But Utah did benefit a lot from whistles against Temple: The Owls were called for 27 fouls to Utah's 13. The Utes parlayed that into a big benefit at the line, making 26 of 34 free throws while Temple shot only nine.

Utah finished the Puerto Rico Tip-Off with a 2-1 record, and improved to 4-1 overall. The Utes' next game comes against Idaho State at the Huntsman Center on Friday.

Twitter: @kylegoon —

Storylines

R Sophomore center Jakob Poeltl has a career-best 32 points.

• Poeltl adds 11 rebounds for his third double-double this year.

• The Utes pull away at the finish as Poeltl hits four straight free throws.

More coverage

• Aggressiveness keys victory for Poeltl and the Utes. > http://www.sltrib.com