Utah basketball's season ends with loss vs. Cincinnati in Big 12 tournament

The Utah men's basketball season ended Tuesday with a loss to Cincinnati in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.

Terrence Brown finished with a game-high 22 points, 15 of which came in the second half, and nearly dug the Runnin' Utes (10-22, 2-16 Big 12) out of a 15-point deficit down the stretch of regulation, but the Bearcats (18-14, 9-9 Big 12) hung on for a 73-66 win behind a big day from Baba Miller and timely 3s from Jalen Celestine.

Here's how it went down at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri.

Defense, Utah, Defense

Not much about Utah's showing on the defensive end of the floor in the final week of the regular season indicated the Bearcats would have a hard time finding the bottom of the bucket on Tuesday. The Utes entered the Big 12 tournament fresh off allowing Colorado and Baylor to score 92 and 101 points, respectively, in a couple of lackluster efforts from Jensen's group, which struggled to keep opponents off the scoreboard throughout nonconference and Big 12 play.

Tuesday was a much different story, though. The Utes were connected and aggressive on defense, forcing the Bearcats to settle for 3s and midrange jumpers early on. The lack of driving lanes made finding any sort of offensive groove tough for Cincinnati, which started 3-of-15 from the field and didn't make its first 2-pointer until the 8:39 mark in the first half.

It wasn't until the Utes' well dried up on the other end of the floor that the Bearcats settled into their offense. Utah missed 19 of its final 21 field goal attempts in the first half, giving Cincinnati plenty of chances to to turn defense into offense.

The Bearcats wound up going 27-of-60 (45%) from the field, including 15-of-29 (51.7%) in the second half. Utah, meanwhile, was 23-of-62 (37.1%) from the field and 5-of-18 (27.8%) from 3-point range.

Nightmarish-End to First Half Dooms Utes

Utah got off to the start it wanted, but once again couldn't maintain its intensity and focus on the offensive end for the full 40-minute ballgame.

After riding their defensive effort to an early 9-point lead, the Utes spent the final 11 minutes and change of the first half laboring just to get off a clean shot attempt, opening the door for the Bearcats to swing momentum in their favor.

Wes Miller's squad seized its opportunity to flip the script and dig Utah into a hole it never managed to climb out of. As the Utes continued to come up empty on offense, the Bearcats upped their tempo and took advantage of the Utes' discombobulated transition defense, leading to a couple of fastbreak opportunities and cleaner looks around the rim.

Slowly but surely, Utah's lead turned into a 9-point deficit by the time the halftime buzzer sounded. Shooting a woeful 19.4% from the field — the program's worst field goal percentage in any half this season — certainly didn't help the Utes prevent the Bearcats' avalanche from happening, nor did the lack of foul pressure from everyone not named Terrence Brown.

Just when it looked like Cincinnati was ready to pull away for good, Brown knocked down a flurry of midrange jumpers to give Utah life down the stretch of the second half. The 6-foot-3 guard capitalized on the space Cincinnati gave him coming off screens, cutting Utah's double-digit down to five with just over 4 minutes left in regulation.

Jalen Celestine halted Utah's momentum with a timely 3-pointer at the 3:16 minute mark, extending Cincinnati's lead back to eight. Baba Miller set the play up with a nice dish out of the post, tallying one of the forward's six assists in the process. Miller also had 11 points and 14 rebounds.

Utah's First Season Under Alex Jensen Comes to an End

Tuesday officially marked the end of a humbling first season for Alex Jensen at the helm of his alma mater, which ended in the program securing its fewest wins in a season since 2011-12 and its first last-place finish in the conference standings in over 50 years.

That said, the good news for the former Utes standout is that the only way to go from here is up. A quick turnaround has never been the expectation for Jensen, anyway, considering he inherited a program that hadn't been to the NCAA Tournament in a decade when he was hired from the NBA ranks about a year ago.

Solidifying his team's identity on the defensive end of the floor should be one of Jensen's top priorities over the next few months. There were glimpses of what the Utes could be when they locked in on defense, though their effort was far too inconsistent to compete with the rest of the Big 12.

According to KenPom.com, Utah entered Tuesday with an adjusted defensive rating of 111.5. That would be a program-worst since the website began tracking that data in 1997. The Utes also went into Tuesday on pace to allow the most points, on average, in a season since 1974-75, when they yielded 79.8 points per contest (Utah was giving up 79.3 going into the Big 12 tournament).

Tuesday was one the Utes' better showings on that end of the floor. Had it not been for the dry spell at the end of the first half, the final outcome could've been much different.

Regardless, Utah will need to make some changes to ensure its defensive effort is more consistent and engrained into its identity in 2026-27.