Short-handed Utes open Pac-12 play at nemesis Oregon

The Utes head to Oregon this weekend with intentions of breaking the trend they’ve seen develop during their nonconference road games. It also wouldn’t hurt if they got a few more healthy bodies in uniform.

The script for Utah in enemy territory has gone like this: At some point during a competitive, tightly contested game the Utes help fuel a game-changing run by their hosts by committing a succession of ill-timed turnovers and falling victim to momentary lapses in defense and/or rebounding. It happened in each of the three losses at UNLV, Butler and BYU.

The Utes (8-3) hope they’ve fixed those issues as they get set to open Pac-12 Conference play against Oregon (10-3) at 8 p.m. MT Friday at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Ore. The Ducks, who also will be playing their conference opener, enter this meeting having won the past nine games against the Utes.

“Sometimes I think if you have a group of guys that you’ve been fortunate enough to coach for two or three years, there can be a little bit more gray area and you rely on your players to make plays and not have turnovers and kind of understand each other,” Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak said. “I still think there’s enough newness with the roster that we have right now [that] within that gray area we were finding some mistakes.”

Krystkowiak hopes clarification and simplification will help. Specifically, the turnovers that turn into fast-break opportunities are what Krystkowiak wants to curtail. On another team’s court, those plays just feed the crowd and provide energy to the home squad.

“I’d like to be a team that doesn’t beat themselves,” Krystkowiak said. “You’re going to have to beat us.”

Injuries will leave the Utes shorthanded going into Friday night, but it’s still unclear to what extent. Redshirt freshman forward Chris Seeley (gall bladder surgery) and freshman forward Donnie Tillman (sprained foot) remain out, while senior starters David Collette (abdominal strain) and Gabe Bealer (hyper-extended knee) have had limited participation in practice this week. Both Collette and Bealer could be game-day decisions.

Senior guard Justin Bibbins and senior forward Tyler Rawson picked up the lion’s share of the scoring burden without leading scorer Collette (13.5 ppg) and super sub Tillman (10.7 ppg) in the Utes’ most recent game, a win over Northwestern State on Dec. 20. Rawson and Bibbins scored 25 points apiece in that win.

Instead of putting the onus on one or two players to handle the ball and provide offense during crucial instances, Bibbins pointed to sharing the ball as the key for the Utes to eliminate their miscues on the road in hostile environments.

“I think for us, we need to trust each other more in the second half,” Bibbins said. “So swing the ball more amongst everybody instead of putting it in the hands of one person and one person trying to make the play. That’s usually when the turnovers are happening. If we trust in each other in late-game [situations] when the game gets tough, then we’re going to be OK.”

Friday night figures to provide a tough test right out of the gate for the Utes. The Ducks, a program coming off of a Final Four appearance last season, enter this weekend with an 8-1 record at home and an .894 winning percentage at home since Matthew Knight Arena opened in 2011.

The Ducks were picked to finish fourth in the conference’s preseason poll despite losing four starters from last season’s squad.

“We just need to focus on ourselves,” Bibbins said. “I think that’s the biggest point. The competition is going to [step] up, and we’re going to play better teams. But we need to focus on what we’re doing and get better every day. It’s a marathon and not a sprint. If we can just keep working on rebounding and not turning over the ball, we plan on playing in the [Pac-12] championship and going far in the NCAA Tournament.”