After having all kinds of trouble solving Washington’s aggressive zone defense in Salt Lake City last month, Utah’s basketball players and coaches thought they had answers for Wednesday night’s rematch in Seattle.
The strategy of having Sedrick Barefield make a bunch of long 3-pointers worked for a while, but was not sustainable. Pac-12 leader Washington surged ahead late in the first half and rolled to a 62-45 victory at Alaska Airlines Arena.
Utah’s first basket of the second half didn’t come until the 8:50 mark, ending a stretch of nearly 16 minutes without a field goal. After scoring 17 points in the game’s first seven minutes, the Utes produced 12 points in the next 24 minutes.