The Cougars are eyeing their biggest upset of the season against the No. 13 Utah Utes as the seniors prepare to suit up for their last games as Cougars.

With its final two games of the regular season happening at home, WSU (12-16, 6-10) seeks an opportunity for its biggest win of the season against Utah (22-6, 12-4). The Cougars are coming off a split against the Southern California schools, beating USC and losing to UCLA in a hard fought battle.

Meanwhile, the Utes are coming off a tough, 63-57 loss to the No. 5 Arizona Wildcats, the only team they have lost to twice this season. Utah dismantled WSU in the teams’ meeting earlier this season 86-64, and all 12 of Utah’s conference victories have been by double digits.

The Cougars didn’t play well against the Utes the last time around, as they looked out-classed on the court. WSU turned the ball over 17 times and Head Coach Ernie Kent said not making as many mistakes and improving defensively will be the keys to its turnaround.

“We need to do a much, much better job defensively and not make as many, what I call, bonehead mistakes because we had a lot of mistakes in the game,” Kent said. “They capitalized on the mistakes and then we did not do a very good job defensively, which our numbers have told us… We’ve made some adjustments we don’t need to talk about but I thought for us to have an opportunity to close the gap with either Utah or Colorado… we’ve got to play smarter, a lot tougher and a lot better defense.”

Senior guard/forward Dexter Kernich-Drew believes the Cougs will have a better chance against the Utes the second time around.

“The past couple games we’ve been starting a lot better and we’ve been playing better defense even though our defense has still been a little bit of an issue and I think now that we’re back at home, we have our fans and in more of a comfortable situation, it will be a lot different game this time,” Kernich-Drew said.

Senior guard DaVonte Lacy has proved once again he’s one of the best scorers in the Pac-12 as he enters the final two regular season games averaging 17.3 points per game. Meanwhile, Kernich-Drew has stepped up his game in the second half of conference play, averaging 15.8 points per game since getting shutout against Oregon State on February 3.

Senior center Jordan Railey might be the most improved of the three as he’s averaged six points per game and 3.3 rebounds a contest over an average of 15.8 minutes per game. Sophomore guard Ike Iroegbu, who is averaging 8.4 points per game and 3.1 assists, said it’s important the younger players on the team send out the seniors the right way.

“We know as underclassmen, me, Josh (Hawkinson), June (Junior Longrus), Que (Johnson), Brett (Boese) and even the freshmen, we gotta play with tremendous energy against Utah and Colorado to send the seniors out in a good way,” Iroegbu said.

You can watch the Cougars in action as they battle the nationally-ranked Utes at 8 p.m. Thursday night in Beasley Coliseum. The game will also be aired on ESPNU.