Utah women top Washington 49-36 in OT

SEATTLE — Utah spent five minutes, and 3.9 precious seconds, shooting the lights out at Hec Edmundson Pavilion on Saturday afternoon.

Unfortunately for the University of Washington women’s basketball team, that’s all the Utes needed. Outside those five minutes and nearly four seconds, the Huskies rendered the Utes without much offense.

After an incredibly inept 40 minutes of basketball in terms of offense — from both teams — Utah caught fire in overtime to shock UW 49-36 in a Pacific-12 Conference game played in front of 3,483 fans.

The Utes (8-6, 1-2 league) made all three field-goal attempts and 10 of 12 shots from the free-throw line, in the five-minute overtime session to outscore UW 17-4. In the extra session, Utah scored more points (17 to 11) and made more field goals (three to two) than it had during the entire 20 minutes of Saturday’s second half.

“It was an ugly basketball game — really, really ugly,” Huskies coach Kevin McGuff said after the two teams combined to shoot 25.2 percent from the field over 45 minutes of play. “Really, really ugly on offense — for both teams.”

Because UW (9-5, 1-3) had plenty of shooting struggles of its own, due in large part to a hamstring injury that sidelined leading scorer Regina Rogers for the final 12 minutes of regulation and all of overtime, Utah really only needed one of its second-half field goals to fall. A high-arcing 3-pointer by Janita Badon — one of only two field goals the Utes made in 26 tries during the second half — fell through with 3.6 seconds remaining to tie the score after UW had spent the previous 161⁄2 minutes in the lead.

Utah incredibly got another chance to win it in regulation after a UW inbounds violation when one Husky player took the ball out of bounds and stepped onto the floor to hand it to a teammate. But the Utes only could get off a desperation shot at the buzzer that was nowhere near the rim, sending a game that was deadlocked at 32 into an overtime session.

The combined 64 points in regulation were just five points above the lowest-scoring game in UW history — a combined 59 points in a 1974-75 win over Puget Sound.

But all those offensive struggles were quickly forgotten by Utah. The Utes scored on their first three field goals of overtime, building up a 39-33 lead after just 1:18 elapsed in the extra session. Those turned out to be the only shots from the field the Utes would take. Utah made 10 of 12 free throws the rest of the way.

The Huskies went 1-for-7 from the field in overtime, but that wasn’t so much an abnormality as it was a carryover from regulation. UW hit just four of 22 shots in the second half yet led for all but just more than three minutes after intermission.

Even more crushing for the Huskies down the stretch were free throws, of which UW missed its final four attempts of regulation. Jazmine Davis, who had a team-high 15 points despite going stone cold for most of the final 35 minutes, missed the front end of a one-and-one with 42.5 seconds remaining. Then teammate Mercedes Wetmore missed a pair of free throws with 26.6 seconds to play.

Through those misses UW maintained a 32-29 lead. The Huskies scored their final point of regulation on Mackenzie Argens’ free throw with 5:10 remaining, then missed eight field-goal attempts and four free throws the rest of the half.

“It was a little dry,” said Davis, who combined with Rogers to score 18 of UW’s 19 first-half points. “We just had to stick together. We couldn’t lose ourselves.”

Despite all the offensive struggles — UW shot 13-for-53 from the field and 0-for-4 from 3-point range for the game — the Huskies stuck together right down to the end … of regulation.

After Glacier Peak High School graduate Marjorie Heard blocked a pair of potential score-tying 3-pointers in the final 27 seconds, the Utes gathered the offensive rebounds and eventually made a shot. Badon’s 3-pointer with 3.6 seconds to play marked Utah’s first made field goal in 6:42 and just the second of the entire second half of regulation.

UW seemed to fall apart during an overtime session, and McGuff admitted that his team “probably” ran out of gas. But the bigger factor was Utah’s sudden offensive perfection.

“We’re a good offensive team,” Utah coach Anthony Levrets said afterward. “We have four players on our team that have scored 30 points in a basketball game, and I don’t know if there’s anybody else in the country that has that. At some point in time, we were going to make shots. We just have too many talented players for that to continue.”

UW’s McGuff was less concerned with his team’s overtime performance than he was the way the final minute of regulation went.

“The bottom line is, for us to put a game like that away, we have to get a tough rebound and or make free throws,” said McGuff, whose team allowed seven offensive rebounds in the final 20 minutes of regulation. “We did neither, and they hit the big shot at the end (of regulation).”

Rogers had 10 points and eight rebounds in 26 minutes of action before the hamstring injury left her unable to finish. She made all five of her shots, while the rest of the Huskies went 8-for-48 (16.7 percent) from the field. The first UW player to hit a field goal other than Rogers and Davis was Heard, on a long 2-pointer from the top of the key with 12:37 remaining in regulation.

Davis started off hot by scoring eight points and going 3-for-4 from the field over the opening 10 minutes, but she made just three of 13 shots the rest of the way. She and Rogers scored all of UW’s points in route to an early 16-9 lead before Utah chipped away and eventually led 21-19 at the half.

That turned out to be the more impressive 20-minute session of regulation, as the two teams went a combined 6-for-48 (12.5 percent) from the field in the second half. The Utes missed their first 17 shots after halftime and 10 of 49 shots for the game before nailing four of five field goals in a span of 1:22 to finish regulation and start the overtime session.

Now the Huskies have six days to mull their performance before returning to action at Washington State this Saturday.

“Probably a never good time to lose like that,” McGuff said. “But it’s always nice to get back on the court. On the flip side, we get a week to prepare — and, hopefully, get better.”