3 takeaways from Utah’s perspective in its close loss to No. 9 BYU

Utah had several star efforts and showed incredible fight against the favored Cougars, though BYU wrapped it up late.

There was a packed house inside the Huntsman Center on Saturday night — a rarity these days, outside of when BYU comes to town.

That was the case again, as the No. 9 Cougars made the trek to Salt Lake City for the first of two rivalry games over the next two weeks — the two teams will play in Provo on Jan. 24.

The Runnin’ Utes, for their part, gave their fans plenty to cheer about against BYU.

Utah played the Cougars even in the first half, fell behind by as many as 13 in the second and then rallied to within a possession, even down one, late in the game before BYU sealed the win in the final minute.

Here are three takeaways from the game from the Utes’ perspective.

An impressive start and overall fight for Utah

In the Utes’ first two Big 12 contests, they found themselves down 14-2 to No. 1 Arizona and 11-1 to Colorado.

Before all the fans had a chance to settle into their seats at the Huntsman Center Saturday, though, it was Utah who found itself with a nice early lead.

Terrence Brown hit a couple buckets and a free throw, while James Okonkwo added a dunk, and the Utes were up 7-0 less than a minute and a half in.

BYU recovered from that early spurt and took its first lead at 10-9, but it set the tone as the teams battled back and forth all night.

What resulted was a highly entertaining matchup in which each team took its share of punches and delivered counterpunches.

Though BYU used a 12-2 run early in the second half to go up as many as 13, Utah struck back and was within a possession multiple times down the stretch.

The Utes are still in search of playing a complete game, but rest assured, they made the Cougars play all 40 minutes Saturday night.

Can Utah carry this kind of energy into games when non-rivals come to the Huntsman Center later this year?

BYU has its Big 3, but Utes’ dynamic guards — and others — played their hearts out

The Cougars are well-known for their star trio of players: AJ Dybantsa, Rob Wright III and Richie Saunders.

And understandably, those three led BYU to the win.

Credit needs to be thrown the way of Utah’s top scorers as well, though.

Brown, even though he had a costly late turnover when the Utes had a chance to tie with under 10 seconds to play, elevated to the moment against the rivals.

He finished with a team-high 25 points and added five rebounds and three assists.

Don McHenry added 21 points, two rebounds and two assists, and time and again, the dynamic guards came up with big shots.

Okonkwo, too, brought energy inside for Utah, finishing with 13 rebounds, four points and two assists.

An electric atmosphere — and a full MUSS — finally gave the Utes nice crowd support

The Huntsman Center atmosphere has been a far cry from its former electric self, when Alex Jensen was a player at the U.

Even in these lean crowd years, Utah fans have turned out for the BYU game, and that was the case late Saturday night.

The Utes fed off the crowd Saturday, from the first half when the two teams battled back and forth, to late in the game, when hope was still alive that Utah could pull the upset.

(Don’t pay attention to the fact the MUSS held its sign up backwards at the start of the contest and at halftime — that was a bit embarrassing).

Playing in front of an electrified crowd was a reward for a group of Utah players who finally got to see what a full arena looks like.

Only Keanu Dawes was around and played when these teams faced each other in the Huntsman last year (Ibi Traore and Jerry Huang were there last year, too, but they never played).

For guys such as Brown, McHenry, Okonkwo and all the other newcomers, they got to experience the buzz here at least once this season.

Source: Utah News