Stanford @ Utah preview
Jon M. Huntsman Center
Last Meeting ( Feb 26, 2020 ) Utah 62, Stanford 70
Stanford looks for its fourth straight win when the Cardinal face Utah in a rare midweek matinee Pac-12 basketball game Thursday in Salt Lake City.
The Cardinal (8-3, 4-1 Pac-12) have won three straight games and are coming off a 75-60 win over Washington State at home last Saturday.
Forward Oscar da Silva scored 27 points against the Cougars, including 15 in the final 10 minutes of the game. He has five 20-point games on the season and is the reigning Pac-12 Player of the Week.
da Silva leads the conference in scoring at 19.8 points per game, and field goal percentage at 62.8. Stanford is near the top in the conference even without a pair of injured guards in Daejon Davis and Bryce Wills.
"The standard is set at such a high level for him, the expectations are that he's going to play at such a high level," Cardinal head coach Jerod Haase said. "But if there's an example of what a scholar-athlete is in the Pac-12 or Stanford, he's a heck of an example. ... As a coach I can't respect him any more than I do, so you could say I am very thankful and very grateful for him."
Stanford has lost five straight games to the Utes in Utah, going back to 2015, but Utah (4-5, 1-4) is reeling after four straight losses. The Utes, though, have swept the Bay Area schools five times at home since the 2014-15 season.
Utah took a 10-point lead into halftime against Colorado on Monday but was outscored 38-21 in the second half and lost 65-58. The Buffaloes won despite making just 21 of 60 shots for the game, as Utah was just 4 of 19 from 3-point range and 2 of 11 on free throws.
It was the second straight game the Utes lost a 10-point halftime lead, as they wilted against Oregon on Jan. 9 in the second half.
Utah will look to forward Timmy Allen to provide offense. Allen has scored 18 points or more in five of his last six games.
But getting out-rebounded 49-31 against Colorado stung, as Utah has played well in spurts during recent games but has been unable to sustain the good effort.
"I would like everybody to be about 260 (pounds), and 6-foot-11," Utah coach Larry Krystowiak told the Deseret News. "But we aren't going to be anytime soon. ... We don't have a magic pill to get big and strong and look like a massive rebounder, so we are going to do what we can from a coaching perspective to fix was much as we possibly can."
--Field Level Media