Utes open road trip with 70-58 victory over Washington

Seattle • Washington had begun to carve out a reputation as dragon slayers on its home court with wins over nationally ranked foes Arizona and Arizona State, but the Utes rallied from a double-digit deficit and handed Washington just its third home loss in 16 games.

Senior forwards David Collette and Tyler Rawson led the charge as Utah outscored the Huskies by 20 points in the second half to earn a 70-58 win in Alaska Airlines Arena. Collette scored a game-high 22 points in 19 minutes, while Rawson added 15 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. The Utes swept the season series against the Huskies (17-9, 7-6 Pac-12).

The road win against an opponent with quality wins and ranked among the top 50 in RPI gave the Utes’ NCAA Tournament chances a huge boost. The Utes (16-9, 8-6) also stayed no more than one game out of second place in the Pac-12 Conference standings. The 16th win of the season assured the Utes of finishing the season with a winning record.

“The magnitude of these types of games — we’re kind of on the outside looking in at a lot of these tournament discussions, and the message to our team is there are rare times in life when you’re presented an opportunity to do something special,” Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak said. “We were kind of at that precipice right now when you’ve got to come into a road game against a team that’s penciled into the NCAA Tournament in Washington.”

Rawson went 4 of 5 from the field in the second half, while Collette made 8 of 10 shots in the game. Justin Bibbins, Sedrick Barefield and Parker Van Dyke scored 10 points apiece. The Utes made 70 percent of their shots in the second half.

“We knew this game was big-time for when it comes to March and this would be a great win to add to our resume,” Rawson said. “We’re just trying to enjoy the moment. We only have four more Pac-12 games left. It’s flying by so we’re just trying to work hard every day and continue to put ourselves in the best position for March Madness.”

Collette went to the bench with 14:19 left in the first half after picking up two fouls. He’d scored six of the team’s first eight points when he sat. With Collette sidelined and the Utes having shot below 30 percent for most of the half (27 percent at halftime), it appeared they’d gotten out of the woods, holding a two-point lead, 24-22, with 3:15 remaining before halftime.

Instead the wheels came off the wagon just before the break. The Utes’ final six offensive possessions were painfully cruel. It started with a missed/blocked dunk attempt by Chris Seeley, Van Dyke’s 3-pointer went in and out, Donnie Tillman weaved his way through traffic and couldn’t finish a layup, Rawson got called for a questionable offensive foul, Barefield missed a 3-pointer and Rawson missed another 3-pointer just before halftime.

The Huskies scored the final 10 points of the half to take a 32-24 lead. The Huskies scored the first basket of the second half and took a 10-point advantage. That’s when the Utes tilted the tables with a combination of Collette scoring at will in the post and complementary perimeter shooting they didn’t have in the first half when they went 3 of 16 from behind the arc.

The Utes outscored the Huskies 21-4 after that first basket of the second half to take a 45-38 lead. They pushed the lead to 11 points, 51-40, with 8:48 left and didn’t relinquish the lead. Collette scored 16 second-half points.

“We’ve all been here picking each other up, encouraging each other,” Collette said. “That’s all it takes. We know we played bad, and we came in at half and before our coaches even came in we took care of a lot of stuff on our own. [We were] talking to each other, trying to fix obvious things that we know were going wrong and just saying ‘Hey, we played bad. We didn’t knock down a lot of shots. We’re going to get it in the second half.’”