The chorus of boos that echoed throughout the arena and the couple crumpled programs that landed on the court courtesy of disgruntled Utes fans conveyed how high the emotions ran. The Utes narrowly missed beating the the fourth-ranked team in the country.
Senior Justin Bibbins launched a 3-pointer with six seconds left that looked pure, on line and destined to set off a raucous celebration. Instead the ball — as if purposefully tormenting Utah — started on a path through the basket and somehow bounded up and out. Had it gone down, the Utes would’ve taken a one-point lead.
Instead No. 4 Arizona State (13-2, 1-2) escaped with an 80-77 win over the Utes in front of an announced 12,123 onlookers in the Jon M. Huntsman Center on Sunday night. The loss dropped the Utes to 10-5 overall and .500 (2-2) in Pac-12 Conference play after back-to-back losses at home to the Arizona schools.
“It looked like it was already in,” Bibbins said. “And then it just came out, but that’s just the way it goes.”
The rebound deflected out of bounds under the Utah basket. Upon review, the referees ruled it had last touched Utah sophomore Jayce Johnson. The video board replay appeared to show a Sun Devils player having touched it last. However, the in-house video feed is different than the ESPN feed available to the referees.
The Utes were forced to foul with less than a second left. Sun Devils senior Shannon Evans II (22 points) added a free throw in the final second. Evans made five of his team’s eight 3-pointers, including several from 5 or 6 feet behind the arc. Kodi Justice also finished with 20 points for the Sun Devils.
“I think it’s quite a bit more heart-breaking for me [than the crowd] when I see that, to be honest with you,” Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak said of Bibbins’ shot. “I can’t express it. It’s a lot of fun to have a 3-pointer like that – the importance of it. There’s not feeling in the world like when it goes in, and there’s not feeling in the world when it bounced out.”
While the missed 3-pointer will certainly linger, Krystkowiak pointed to the Utes rebounding deficiencies against a smaller team and stretches of turnovers in each half as areas his team needed to clean up.
The Utes made twice as many free throws (10) as the Sun Devils attempted in the first half. They finished the game having gone 29 of 36 at the line, while the Sun Devils were 20 of 23. Sun Devils coach Bobby Hurley, who earned a reprimand from the Pac-12 on Friday for comments about the officiating, demonstratively protested to the referees throughout the game.
The Utes first lead of the game came with 4:49 left in the half on a David Collette tip-in after a missed layup by Tyler Rawson (11 points, five assists).
Offensive miscues brought the Utes offense to a halt early in the second half. They attempted just four field goals in the first seven minutes of the half and committed four turnovers in that same span. Meanwhile the Sun Devils lead reached seven points with 16:27 remaining, shortly after Collette went back to the locker room area with an injury.
“It was just self-inflicted,” said Bibbins, who scored a team-high 22 points. “That was on us. We’ve got to do a better job with taking care of the ball at those type of times and just get a shot every time.”
The Utes clawed back and took the lead on a pair of free throws by Sedrick Barefield (22 points) with 9:57 remaining. The final 10 minutes included seven ties and four lead changes.
Collette, who returned to the game after missing about four minutes, scored 11 of his 16 points in the second half. His layup with 43 second remaining tied the score at 77. Then with 21 seconds left Sun Devils forward Mickey Mitchell drew Collette’s fifth foul and made both of his free throws to put the Utes down two and set the stage for Bibbins’ shot.
