In the end Washington State couldn't spring the upset over No. 13 Utah, falling late in the game, similar to last week's loss at UCLA.

Unlike that game, when the Bruins simply overpowered the smaller Cougars in the second half, in this contest the Utes – No. 9 in the country in field goal percentage – made a number of difficult shots to pull away in a game that was initially a defensive struggle.

Here is our story from the game, final stats and a postgame video of Ernie Kent speaking to the media about the game.

Also, yesterday, Lia Galdeira scored 34 points to lead the WSU women to a win in their Pac-12 Tournament matchup against Oregon.

-- WSU looked like it might be pulling away about seven minutes into the second half, going ahead by eight points and clearly being the more aggressive team. The Cougars got to the free throw line often during that stretch, although they didn't always make their freebies.

But it's not hard to see how Utah got back into the game and eventually took control: The Utes made 8 of 12 3-point attempts in the second half. That onslaught was kind of a mixed bag for the Cougars; WSU's defenders allowed a couple open looks when players lost sight of their men, who were able to run to spots and spot-up for an open shot, but many of Utah's biggest shots were well-contested. DaVonté Lacy and Junior Longrus each had good closeouts only to have the shots go in anyways.

Utah has three regular players that shoot 43 percent or better from behind the arc and they had a good shooting half, there wasn't a lot more the Cougars could do to stop them.

-- That said, the Cougars sure would have helped their cause by playing a little smarter. Freshman Ny Redding isn't immune to the freshman wall that seems to be hitting all the first-year players right now – Utah's Jakob Poeltl had zero shots and four fouls in 17 minutes – and played most of the game in a fog.

One turnover came when Redding dribbled out the shot clock well past the 3-point line and it came after the Cougars had the ball out of bound. Other times WSU had a play to make on offense and simply didn't make the pass or cut that would have led to easy points.

Ernie Kent was adamant after the last two games that WSU would have won each of them if they'd made the plays easily available to them and was lamented last night that the Cougars aren't currently riding a three-game win streak that includes wins at UCLA and against a top-15 team.

Some notes from the game:

-- Lacy blocked a shot for just the 14th time in his career.

-- Lacy has 1,522 career points, just eight points shy of Brock Motum for fifth-place on WSU's all-time scoring list.

-- Ike Iroegbu dished out a career-high seven assists for the second consecutive game.

And a couple quotes:

Jordan Railey on only playing three minutes in the second half: "I think my stupid fouls kind of hurt us. I don't think they had any answer for me or josh in the post and I have to play smarter. As far as what they did, I don't think they did anything different."

Kent on the last two weeks: "People continue to ask how this team's going to bounce back I thought we had just a terrific three-game stretch because we've gotten better, particularly defensively."

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