It took all of 3 seconds for the Runnin’ Utes to get dunked on last Saturday.
Utah coach Alex Jensen stared at his team in disbelief for a little longer than that.
The Cincinnati Bearcats tipped the jump ball toward their own basket and, with the Utes standing flat-footed, finished the play with an easy alley-oop.
“For the last seven or eight games, we’ve talked about the jump ball … and how it’s like a free throw and you’ve got to get into somebody’s body,” Jensen said afterward. “Nobody’s walked through or gone over the jump ball more than we have this year. So it’s disappointing.”
In the end, it was one of the little things that added up to a 69-65 defeat, the Utes’ 12th in their last 13 games.
“This was just one of those games we kind of let slip out of our hands,” said Utah forward Keanu Dawes, who finished with 16 points and 14 rebounds. “It’s really the small things that kind of got us.”
As Jensen enters the final stretch of his first season in charge at Utah, those small things are points of emphasis.
“My message has been whether we play on the road or at home, at 10 a.m. or midnight, there are things you can always do,” Jensen said.
The Utes fouled a 3-point shooter twice in Cincinnati, let a jump ball get away, missed key free throws and finished with 12 assists and 13 turnovers.
“It’s hard to win as a team when you have more turnovers than assists,” Jensen said.
Still, the Utah coach felt his team was good enough to win the game.
The Utes now have six more chances in the regular season to prove him right, starting with Wednesday night’s contest at West Virginia (6:30 p.m. MST, FS1).
“You get to the Big 12 and it’s real,” Jensen said. “It’s my first time, too. It’s their first time. … A lot of guys on my team haven’t been in this position. So we keep talking about a maturing process. We’ve got to keep heading in that direction.”