ASU men’s basketball held tough down the stretch and staved off various challenges in Thursday night’s win over Colorado, but Utah’s strong second-half effort proved too much to overcome.

After leading at halftime, ASU (9-8, 2-2 Pac-12) failed to match Utah’s (11-4, 2-1) second-half offensive output as it lost 88-82 at Wells Fargo Arena on Saturday afternoon.

“I thought it came down to really a tale of two halves for us defensively,” said ASU head coach Bobby Hurley. “They played good offense. We had a period where our offense wasn’t producing and they were able to gain the lead and we couldn’t recover from that.”

Utah shot 69 percent in the second half while holding ASU to just 45.9 percent. Still, the Sun Devils had their chances at swinging the momentum.

After falling behind 59-51, ASU junior guard Kodi Justice made a circus and-one shot while falling to the floor, earning a chance to cut the Utes’ lead to a point. The crowd at Wells Fargo Arena was the loudest it had been to that point in conjunction with the momentum shift taking place.

“I had a mentality where I didn’t want to let my team down and I didn’t want to lose,” Justice said.

However, Justice missed the free throw and Utah eventually extended its lead to nine.

Not long after, Justice was fouled on a three-point attempt and sank all three free throws, which were a rarity as ASU — a team who usually gets to the line a lot — only made 10 of them on Saturday.

That same mentality seemed to hold true for the entire ASU team, which played with high effort throughout. The Sun Devils eventually cut a 10-point Utah lead with 2:53 remaining in the game to just two.

“I’m proud of how the guys fought and pushed the game to the limit,” Hurley said.

In the second half, Hurley tried to slow Utah by using a full-court press. He said he knew there was a trade-off to be had in the decision — either the pressure would force turnovers, or it would result in easy buckets for the Utes.

“We didn’t really have a whole lot of choice in that,” Hurley said of the decision to use the full-court press.

Justice described the team’s defensive effort as “scrappy,” but said things just didn’t go its way.

“We got down so we were trying to pick up and press and maybe that's why their percentages were kind of high,” he said. “They had two-on-one dump offs sometimes because we were trying to get some momentum for us. Some rotations we shouldn't have made and some we should have and they got dunks because of it.”

Utes 6-foot-9 forward Kyle Kuzma scored 26 points on 11-for-17 shooting, including three 3-pointers. Additionally, forward David Collette and guard JoJo Zamora each poured in 18, rounding out a Utah offense Hurley lauded as balanced.

ASU shot 47.8 percent in the game. Junior guard Shannon Evans II scored 21 points, Justice had 17, junior point guard Tra Holder dropped 16 and senior guard Torian Graham poured in 15.

It was a balanced scoring attack, but ASU made just 8 of its 27 attempted 3-pointers, a poor 29.6 percent for a team that usually lives and dies behind the arc.

Utah regularly switched between man-to-man and zone defense throughout the game, which the Sun Devils struggled to solve at times. At one point during the second half, ASU had made just 2 of its last 10 field goals.

“We have a couple of versatile sets that are good against either (man or zone),” Hurley said. “…I just think sometimes we didn’t penetrate and find where the hole in their defense was. I think we have to do a better job of being aggressive and getting to spots and finding our open teammates.”

Both coaches seemed upset with the seemingly spotty officiating for both sides during Saturday’s game. However, a few calls went against ASU during the final stretch of the second half when it was trying to make a comeback.

Perhaps most notably, Utah’s Kuzma seemingly elbowed ASU junior point guard Tra Holder while Holder was trying to steal the ball after Kuzma rebounded it. After an official review, the foul stood on Holder.

When asked about the officiating after the game, Hurley did discuss specifics but provided an answer that easily gave away his opinion.

“I’m just going to take a pass on that one,” he said. “There’s a lot that I would like to say, but I’m just going to move on and be a good boy.”

ASU set itself up well after turning an early nine-point deficit into a 10-point lead during the first half. However, the Sun Devils failed to match that with an equal second-half effort.

Last weekend, the Sun Devils played poorly in the final minutes at Cal and squandered a chance to start 2-0 in conference play. Following a tight win over Colorado, the Sun Devils narrowly missed out on a chance to improve to 3-1.

However, ASU sits at 2-2 before traveling to play three straight ranked teams in Arizona, UCLA, and USC.

“We could be 4-0 or 3-1 (in conference play),” Justice said. “Plays at the end of the game we have to make. There are a couple of things we do here and there: we have to rotate here, close out here or don't turn the ball over here. There's little things that we shot ourselves in the foot with and if we can get those back, we might have a different result.”