BOULDER, Colo. (ABC4 Sports) – The end of the Pac-12 season did not end the same way it began for the Utes men’s basketball team.
Utah (17-14, 10-10 Pac-12) loses its fifth straight game, falling to Colorado, 69-60 Saturday afternoon.
Rollie Worster and Gabe Madsen both returned from injuries for Utah. Worster led the Utes with 15 points, while Madsen added nine off the bench.
Branden Carlson had 13 points, while Lazar Stefanovic had 12 points for Utah.
Julian Hammond III paced Colorado with 15 points, and Nique Clifford added 14.
After a back-and-forth between the two teams to start the game, Colorado got hot from down range and drained three-straight 3-pointers to go up 15-7 – forced a Utah timeout with 11:25 left in the first half. Rollie Worster answered for the Utes out of the break, first knocking down a three before cleaning up a blocked shot for the put-back to bring Utah within 15-12 of the buffs at the 7:48 media break.
Turnovers hurt the Utes (17-14, 10-10 Pac-12) down the stretch to end the half with Utah only hitting 3-of-9 from the field out of that 7:48 media break before heading into the locker room down 33-21. The biggest difference in the first half was the 10-0 edge in fast-break points for the Buffs and the 16-8 edge they had over the Utes in points in the paint.
It took a minute, but Gabe Madsen found his rhythm in the second half and knocked down back-to-back triples to force a Colorado timeout with 14:38 on the clock. The sharpshooter answered the heat check on Utah’s first possession out of the break and drained his third-straight to get Utah within 44-36.
Utah battled the Buffs (16-15, 8-12 Pac-12) until to the very end, cutting the lead down to single-digits (66-60) with 21.9 ticks left to play after Lazar Stefanovic hit his fourth 3-pointer of the game but time wasn’t on its side.
With the loss Utah will enter the Pac-12 Tournament as the No. 7 seed and will face the No. 10 seed Stanford next Wednesday, March 8.
