Utah forward Ben Carlson, left, grabs a rebound away from Southern California forward Joshua Morgan during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in Los Angeles.
Mark J. Terrill, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — When UCLA visited Salt Lake City last month to face Utah, the Runnin’ Utes were the ones playing at the top of their game.
Now, though, it’s the Bruins who are playing their best ball.
It sets up a difficult situation for the hobbling Utes when they take on UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday (5 p.m. MST, FS1).
Since their first meeting on Jan. 11 when Utah routed UCLA 90-44, the Runnin’ Utes have gone just 3-6 and are on a three-game losing streak, including a tight 68-64 loss at USC on Thursday.
That defeat kept Utah (15-10, 6-8 Pac-12) winless on the road in Pac-12 play — their last road victory in conference action came Jan. 26, 2023, against Oregon State. T
he Utes have lost 10 straight road league games since then.
The Bruins (14-11, 9-5 Pac-12), meanwhile, are on a six-game winning streak and have won eight of nine since that humbling loss at Utah.
“They’re an elite defensive team. They’re defending better than anybody,” Utah coach Craig Smith said of UCLA.
“They’re playing the best basketball in the league right now, so it’s gonna be a hard fight game, no question about it.”
After shooting 31.5% in that loss to Utah, a youthful UCLA team has shot 42% or above in seven of its past nine games and relied on a steady amount of free throws to get back to winning.
Freshman guard Sebastian Mack leads the Bruins by averaging 13.5 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game, while sophomore center Adem Bona is adding 12.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per contest.
Dylan Andrews (11.3 ppg) and former Ute Lazar Stefanovic (10.8) are also averaging double-figures.
“They’re a hard-playing team, everybody in the Pac 12 is. We’re on a three-game losing streak but we could easily bounce back and get the win tomorrow or it could go either way,” said Utah guard Deivon Smith, who led the Utes with 19 points, nine rebounds and seven assists against USC.
“But I know as long as we play hard and fight, we have a good chance to beat anybody.”
One positive from Utah’s most recent outing was that the Utes reversed their trend of poor free-throw shooting.
Behind a 7 of 8 effort from Deivon Smith, Utah made 16 of 21 free throws against the Trojans and were more assertive at getting into the lane.
In the nine games since Utah last played UCLA, the Utes have shot under 50% from the free-throw line five times.
The 76.2% make rate against USC was Utah’s best since going 7 of 9 in a loss at Arizona the game before the first Utah-UCLA matchup.
“That was the silver lining and kept us in this game,” Craig Smith said.
There were several concerning stats to come out of the loss to USC, though, such as the Trojans’ 14-4 edge in second-chance points despite Utah owning a 11-10 advantage on the offensive glass.
The Utes also turned the ball over 13 times, including seven in the second half, the last one of the game — with 17 seconds left and Utah trailing by two — the most damaging of the night.
If the Utes can’t shoot better from the field than they did against USC, it could be a long night for the road team.
Utah is coming off its second-worst shooting effort of the season, hitting 36.7% of its field goals and just 4 of 21 3-pointers.
“We missed so many clean looks,” Craig Smith said, while remarking that two of Utah’s best 3-point shooters, Gabe Madsen and Cole Bajema, were a combined 2 of 11 from beyond the arc against USC.
“We could have used just one or two more of those, but that’s how the game goes sometimes.”
UCLA, meanwhile, is one of the nation’s top scoring defenses. The Bruins are 15th nationally in scoring defense at 63.9 points per game, and are second in the league in field goal percentage defense at 41.4%.
Another factor against the Utes: Utah is 4-10 all-time on the road against UCLA and 2-7 at Pauley Pavilion during its Pac-12 era.
“It’s a quick turnaround obviously and we’re gonna have to really game plan but obviously just really lock into us and being our very best and tighten some things up on both ends of the floor,” Craig Smith said.