Utah Falls To Oregon State With Disappointing Second Half

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The Utah men’s basketball team fell to the Oregon State Beavers after a second half collapse by a final score of 74-56 on Thursday night.

Oregon State went on a big 19-3 run midway through the second half to pick up the win over Utah. The Runnin’ Utes turned the ball over 20 times and the Beavers capitalized with 26 points off of those miscues.

Timmy Allen led the Utes with 24 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists. Branden Carlson added 16 points and 3 rebounds.

Ethan Thompson scored 25 points and dished out 8 assists for Beavers in their win.

Utah Struggles Offensively In First Half Against Oregon State

It wasn’t the greatest first half of the season on the offensive end for the Runnin’ Utes. There was a stretch midway through the half where neither team scored for over three minutes and combined for 8 turnovers.

Timmy Allen got it going later with six straight points coming off of back-to-back and-one’s. He finished the first half with 12 points and 4 rebounds. Branden Carlson picked up his second foul just three minutes into the game and had to sit the rest of the half.

Lahat Thioune stepped up in Carlson’s place as he was active on both ends. In 13 minutes, he recorded 6 points and 2 rebounds on 3-for-4 shooting. The Utes and Beavers combined for 20-for-54 from the field and 1-of-14 from the three-point line in the first half, along with 18 turnovers.

The benefit of having a starter sit on the bench for 17 of the 20 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble is having fresh legs in the second half. That’s what the Utes received from Branden Carlson. He had just two points in three minutes in the first half. When the second half started, he was firing. The sophomore scored 10 pints in the first four minutes of the second half.

After the hot start, the Utes cooled down again. The Beavers went on a 19-3 run to take a 57-45 lead with seven minutes to go in the game. Utah couldn’t get much closer than that.

Utah dropped their record to 9-9 overall and 6-8 in Pac-12 play. They will finish their road trip on Saturday when they face Oregon in Eugene. Tip-off is at 7 p.m. MST and will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks.

Trevor Allen is a Utah Utes Insider for KSLSports.com and host of the Crimson Corner podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @TrevorASports.