Cardinal head to Vegas hungry for winning

SALT LAKE CITY — After Utah’s Lorenzo Bonam scored 26 points and led a late-game rally to help dispatch Stanford 67-59 on Saturday afternoon, Cardinal coach Jerod Haase said he thinks his team is hungry heading into next week’s Pac-12 tournament.

“As the second half of the conference season has unfolded, I think we’re getting closer and closer to our potential,” Haase said. “While our potential may not be as high as certain teams in this league, I think that part doesn’t really matter. As long as we can reach our potential or come really close to it, I think we’re going to be in a position to do some good things in Vegas.”

Stanford (14-16, 6-12) must wait to find out its seed in the tournament, which begins Wednesday in Las Vegas. The Utes (20-10, 11-7) will go into the tournament as the No. 4 seed and with a first-round bye.

Bonam took over down the stretch on both ends of the floor to put the Cardinal away. The Utes used a 14-2 run late in the game, including nine points from Bonam, to take an eightpoint lead after trailing most of the day. Bonam had back-toback steals and layups to help the Utes go up 62-54.

“Toward the end of the game, those last five or six minutes, we kind of lost our edge a little bit on the defensive end,” said Dorian Pickens, who paced Stanford with 20 points. “In the first half, we got up and we were able to do that because we got stops on defense. We were aggressive and in the right spots where we needed to be. We were able to get stops and push in transition.

“Our inability to do that late in the game ultimately cost us.”