What Utah's Alex Jensen said after tough loss to UCF

Utes drop tough game to Knights at the Huntsman Center

Utah Runnin' Utes head coach Alex Jensen watches play against the UCF Knights during the first half at Jon M. Huntsman Center. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Coming off a victory over West Virginia, Utah nearly pulled off its second win over an NCAA Tournament bubble team in a three-day span but couldn't hang on down the stretch of a 73-71 loss to UCF on Saturday.

The Runnin' Utes (10-17, 2-12 Big 12) and Knights (19-7, 8-6 Big 12) were tied with under 15 seconds remaining but wound up fouling Themus Fulks, who knocked down a pair of free throws to put UCF up with with less 5 seconds to play in regulation.

Don McHenry drilled three free throws to tie the game at 71 and finished with 19 points, while Terrence Brown led Utah with 21. Brown had a chance to win the game at the buzzer but missed on a look from 3-point range as the final horn sounded. UCF, projected as a 10-seed in Joe Lunardi's latest bracketology, hung on for the win without its leading scorer, Riley Kugel, in the lineup due to injury.

Here's what Alex Jensen had to say after the game.

On Seydou Traore's foul in the final seconds

"That was a mistake by our coaching staff. I'll take the blame on that, because we had a foul to give and, and obviously you don't want to foul them that late. And I feel bad for Seydou; I think we put him in a bad spot. We told the ref we were trying to foul him a dribble or two over half court so they'd have to take it out on the sideline with hopefully 8, 7 seconds left."

"Unfortunate, but again, I told our guys: As coaches, we'll, we'll get better at preparing for those situations."

On his team's inability to score down the stetch

Give Johnny [Dawkins] and and Central Florida credit. They probably watched our Arizona State game. We talked to our guys and walked through it and it's just kind of a maturity level of, when something works, you just keep going back to it. You don't need to do something more."

"In the second half, because against the zone, you don't need a million plays, and we did a good job there. I think when we made our run in the second half, we just ran a couple plays, and the guys did a really good job with it. But I think we kind of get him impatient. We get sped up and and obviously playing a zone changes the tempo of the game. And we're learning to play at that tempo."

On positive takeaways from last two games

"To be honest, I'm getting sick of the moral victories. We were up by five at Cincinnati, who just beat Kansas. And I feel bad for our guys because the opportunities don't come around a lot. I'm trying to get that across to them, to make the most of it."

"It's hard because I think we're better than our record. We've made those plays down the stretch, not those big time mistakes. So again, it's just learning."

On his team's effort over the last few weeks

"I'll give them credit, because I think we as coaches kind of portray it to them, but just being steady, right? Getting better every day. And I think the long road trips sometimes can be a good time, because you spend time together. And I thought we did a good job and give them credit; they came back after we lost a tough one at Cincinnati, which we very well could have won, and we came out with a performance at West Virginia, which was good."

"I knew this one was going to be tough, because you have to travel, you get back late and you have to push through. I'll give them that, but it's kind of got to start with that. I think they're playing better together and off of each other, and when we make our runs, that's usually what happens."