Arizona Wildcats lose 73-58 at Utah in Kerr Kriisa's college debut

SALT LAKE CITY – Azuolas Tubelis had 17 points and seven rebounds to lead Arizona on Thursday, but it wasn’t nearly enough even with Kerr Kriisa making his collegiate debut.

With five players scoring in double-figures, hot-shooting Utah defeated Arizona 73-58 at the Huntsman Center before a small gathering of media, Utah player guests and an FS1 audience.

"We need to get better," Tubelis said. "They were better, and they were more ready. ... Our defense was the (worst) all this season."

Leading for much of the first half before Utah went into halftime on a 9-1 run to take a 32-27 halftime lead, the Wildcats struggled to put together any sort of rally in the second half. UA shot just 28.6% from the field after halftime while allowing Utah to shoot 57.7% and hit 4 of 5 3s after halftime.

Mesa product Timmy Allen led Utah’s offense with 18 points on 7-for-13 shooting. The Utes shot 50.9% overall from the field and had five players scoring in double figures.

What's more, Utah also took away one of Arizona's usual pillars of success, tying UA in rebounding 32-32. UA has still not been out-rebounded all season.

"They were highly motivated here tonight," UA coach Sean Miller said. "They were organized, they were prepared, they were ready, and they kicked our butt."

The loss dropped Arizona to 13-5 overall and 7-5 in the Pac-12, while Utah improved to 8-7 and 5-6. The Wildcats were scheduled to leave immediately after the game to fly to Colorado, where they will face the Buffaloes on Saturday at 6 p.m.

Wearing his first name “Kerr” on the back of his No. 25 jersey — just as Steve Kerr wore it over three decades ago — Kriisa made his debut after the first media timeout. He did not take a shot over seven minutes played in the first half but dished two assists, having been expected to give the Wildcats an additional boost of ballhandling and shooting off the bench.

Kriisa was initially expected to become eligible Saturday at Colorado, because the NCAA ruled he had to sit out 70% of UA’s games, but because Arizona’s March 6 game with ASU was moved up to Jan. 25, he was able to play Thursday. Entering Thursday, Arizona had effectively “played” 70% of its games (19), which counted 17 actually played games plus two that were canceled or postponed (San Diego and Oregon).

Kriisa finished the game going 0 for 2 from the field with two assists.

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"It was nice to have him out there, and you could kind of see his spark a little bit," Miller said. "I'm glad we had him. I'm not so sure if we didn't have him with the predicament that we were in if the score would have been more lopsided. But he helped us."

Down 32-27 at halftime, Arizona fell into a deep hole five minutes into the second half when Utah went on an 11-2 run to take a 51-33 lead by the time Allen stole the ball from James Akinjo and scored with 14:02 left.

Utah power forward Riley Battin later stepped back and hit a wide-open 3 at the top of the key to give Utah a 60-44 lead that prompted UA coach Sean Miller to call a timeout.

Things didn’t get much better for the Wildcats from there and Kriisa missed his first shot, a 3-pointer, with 5:31 left when Utah led 64-50.

Even though UA led for most of the first half, Utah took over with a 9-1 run over the final three minutes of the first half.

"That last four minutes of the first half was a disaster," Miller said. "From that point we were just playing uphill."

The Wildcats shot 46.2% from the field in the first half and out-rebounded Utah 16-14, but the Utes committed only four turnovers to Arizona's eight. The Utes scored eight points off UA's eight turnovers, taking advantage of the Wildcats particularly inside where Tubelis had three turnovers and Koloko had two. 

Alfonso Plummer, the current Pac-12 Player of the Week after he scored 23 points in 15 minutes to lead Utah to a comeback win at Colorado last Saturday, led the Utes in the half with nine points on 4-of-8 shooting.

Plummer finished with 12 points on 5 for 13 shooting. He was only 2 for 7 from 3-point range, suggesting that things could have been even worse for Arizona on Thursday.

"I think we've been moving in a better direction" defensively, Miller said. "We took a giant step backward here tonight." 

Photos: Arizona Wildcats vs. Utah Utes in Salt Lake City

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