Utah HC Larry Krystkowiak Reacts To Double Dribble Call Late In Loss To Oregon

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Utah head basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak reacted to the double dribble call late in their 67-64 loss to Oregon on Saturday night.

Larry Krystkowiak expressed his feelings about the double dribble call as Utah lost to Oregon for the seventh straight time. It was clear that Krystkowiak was trying to get his point across in the postgame Zoom press conference without getting in trouble by the league. There is still a chance that Krystkowiak could be fined or receive a reprimand from the conference, which will be released on Monday if such thing happens.

Oregon had the ball with 25 seconds left and was shooting free throws with Utah in the bonus up by one point. The Ducks missed the front end of a one-and-one. The Runnin’ Utes grabbed the rebound and pushed up the floor.

A pass was thrown back to Allen, who had to run to midcourt to grab the ball when he nearly stepped over the line for a backcourt violation. When Allen gathered his footing and started to dribble, the official near him called a double dribble. Krystkowiak was clearly upset at the call and after looking at the replay, it did not look like a double dribble.

FINAL

💔 loss for @UtahMBB #GoUtes #Pac12Hoops pic.twitter.com/wsPLzEtalU

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) February 21, 2021

Utah was then forced to foul Oregon with 3 seconds left in the game. Chris Duarte put the Ducks up by three points. Allen missed the potential game-tying three-pointer.

After the game, KSL Sports asked Krystkowiak about his thoughts on the double dribble call. He started the response with a laugh for 10 seconds before answering the question.

“All I can say is wow,” Krystkowiak said. “You know what a team goes through and we scrapped and we played our butts off and it wasn’t error free by any means, and we make plenty of mistakes. Oregon made plenty of mistakes. Dana (Altman) and I probably made plenty of mistakes. But I think at the end of the day, we let the players determine a game and so to make up a call at the end, that didn’t even happen is mind boggling. Palming is also a rule as is double dribble and palming doesn’t seem to be called I can show you 15 clips of palming tonight. So I’m really confused and I feel really bummed for our team. I feel bad for the game that it has to has to be that way. That’s how I feel about it.”

Final from Eugene.😔 pic.twitter.com/ss67n5LvoU

— Utah Basketball🏀 (@UtahMBB) February 21, 2021

Utah dropped their record to 9-10 overall and 6-9 in Pac-12 play. They will return to the Jon M. Huntsman Center to face UCLA on Thursday, February 25. Tip-off is at 6 p.m. MST on the Pac-12 Networks.

Trevor Allen is a Utah Utes Insider for KSLSports.com and host of the Crimson Corner podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @TrevorASports. You can download and listen to the podcast, here.