Following the team’s first loss of the season to Cal Poly last week, the Runnin’ Utes showed a little more life late Tuesday night in the semifinal round of the Acrisure Classic Series against Grand Canyon, but in the end it was all Antelopes.
Grand Canyon used an 11-3 run to start the game, building a 12-point lead in the opening minutes of the second half and winning 68-58 in a game that the Antelopes controlled from start to finish.
Utah (5-2) took the lead early in the game after Grand Canyon (4-2) shook off a hot start, eventually getting a go-ahead bucket from Jacob Patrick, who hit back-to-back 3-pointers and then a driving floater midway through the first half.
After a fast-paced and energetic start to the game, both teams remained slightly tied and went on a three-minute scoring drought while trading baskets for much of the half. Grand Canyon immediately took control of the second half and maintained a double-digit lead against a Utah team that could not crack the defense.
Even during a nearly six-minute scoring drought by the Antelopes, Utah could get no closer to cutting the deficit to 6 before Grand Canyon built another double-digit lead, where it remained for the duration of the night.
Grand Canyon shut down Utah guard Terrence Brown, and thwarted all of his attempts to get going on offense as the team’s leading scorer. Brown scored 9 points on 3-11 shooting while being forced to commit four fouls.
But Brown was not alone, although he was the main focus of the antelope. Utah shot just 41% from the field and was 61% from the free-throw line.
However, surprisingly, Grand Canyon shot worse than Utah at 40% from the field, including 0 of 10 from the 3-point line. But the difference was Utah’s 14 turnovers, which the Antelopes converted into 17 points on the other end.
In the loss, Utah performed better on the rebounding front – an area of struggle recently – and outshot Grand Canyon 40–33, but the team’s poor shooting and turnovers ultimately doomed the comeback.
Utah was led in scoring by Don McHenry, who finished as one of only two Utes players in double figures with 14 points and three rebounds in the loss. Keanu Dawes added 10 points and 12 rebounds in another double-double performance.
Grand Canyon had three players finish in double figures scoring, with Jaden Henley leading the way with 18 points and three rebounds, and Efe Demiral adding 12 points and five rebounds in the win.
With the loss, Utah will play No. 36 Ole Miss in the multi-team event’s third-place game on Wednesday (10 p.m. MST, CBSN) at KenPom, putting Grand Canyon in the winner’s bracket against an Iowa team that is leading in votes in the latest Associated Press Top 25 rankings.
Coming into the season, a game against Ole Miss could have served as a resume-starter for a potential NCAA Tournament bid, but Utah is far from that conversation as the team now drops back-to-back games against sub-100 ranked teams.
The highlights for this article were created with the help of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is entirely human-written.
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