‘Another growth opportunity’: Utah survives late scare from Bearkats to remain unbeaten

With an almost entirely new group alongside a brand new coach in Alex Jensen, this season is bound to be a learning process, especially in the early going, for the University of Utah basketball team.

For the Runnin’ Utes, who improved to 4-0 with an 85-79 victory over Sam Houston Saturday at the Huntsman Center, the night’s lesson was “How to hang on for dear life after blowing a 20-point second-half lead.”

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Earlier this season the Utes had done the opposite, coming from behind to beat Weber State in overtime with an exciting comeback.

This time, the Utes had to sweat it out in the final minute when the Bearkats almost turned a certain loss into an unlikely victory.

“It was a great lesson to learn,” Jensen said. “We got up by 20 and we kind of let up a little bit and started to think about scoring and things of that nature. Now we get to talk about playing with the lead, so hopefully this was another growth opportunity for all of us.”

On the positive side, the Utes received a monster game from Keanu Dawes, the only returning regular from last year, who scored 17 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, including four on the offensive glass.

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Terrence Brown, a transfer from Fairleigh Dickinson who came in averaging 23 points a game, led the scoring with 26 points, including six free throws in the final 30 seconds when the Utes were on the verge of an embarrassing collapse.

The Utes had seemed to be in firm control of this one, jumping out to a 12-point lead midway through the first half and then extending their 37-30 halftime lead to 20 at 57-37 at the 14:22 mark on a Brown dunk. Before that, Utah had sunk four 3-pointers in a three-minute span after making just three in the first half.

But the pesky Bearkats, who finished ninth in Conference USA last year and came into Utah with a 1-1 record with a big loss to another Big 12 team, Texas Tech, wouldn’t go away.

They pulled within 10 midway through the second half, only to see Utah go up 76-61 with 6:01 left on a pair of Dawes’ free throws. But the team from Huntsville, Texas, kept chipping away and made the small crowd anxious when Jacobe Coleman sank a 3-pointer and Kashie Natt sank a pair of free throws to cut the lead to 79-77 with 1:09 left.

“It was a great lesson to learn. We got up by 20 and we kind of let up a little bit and started to think about scoring and things of that nature. Now we get to talk about playing with the lead, so hopefully this was another growth opportunity for all of us.”

Utah coach Alex Jensen on victory over Sam Houston

Then, after a missed shot by Don McHenry, the Bearkats had a chance to tie, but Justin Begg’s layup in the lane missed badly and the Utes corralled the rebound. From there it was all up to Brown, who coolly swished six free throws.

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“Yeah we definitely let up the last five or six minutes of the game” said Dawes. “I think it was a lack of focus, not a lack of effort or care.”

“We need to keep our foot on the gas and finish up,” added Seydou Traore, who finished with 10 points and five rebounds.

The Utes’ November home schedule continues with a couple of “should-win” games against Purdue-Fort Wayne Tuesday night and Cal Poly Thursday night, before the competition gets more challenging with games against Grand Canyon (an NCAA Tournament team the past three years) in the Acrisure Series at Palm Desert, California, Nov. 25, and either Iowa or Ole Miss the following night.