By the time we had a chance to talk to Luke Nevill and Johnnie Bryant at the annual Mountain West Conference preseason meeting, they were both obviously gassed from a day full of other interviews.

But both said they were encouraged by being picked to finish third.

"I think there's a buzz out there for us," Bryant said. "But it really doesn't matter. It's all about production when we take the floor."

While Nevill and Bryant sat through their final interview session virtually asleep in their chairs, coach Jim Boylen seemed energized while socializing with UNLV's Lon Kruger, whom he knows from their days in the NBA.

Boylen acknowledged feeling uncomfortable during his television interviews -- he could never get a feel for when the host would ask him a question, he said -- but said he enjoyed getting to know the other first-year coaches whom he hadn't yet met. He also had the best response to learning the Utes had been picked third: "We're thankful to be picked third, but going to do our best to finish first," Boylen said.

Otherwise, though, it was a pretty uneventful day.

Nobody made any startling predictions, and it was hard to find many strong opinions on what might happen in the league this season, what with all of the new players and coaches.

Bryant did say, at any rate, that if he had been allowed to vote in the preseason poll, he might have gone with the New Mexico Lobos. The Lobos received two first-place votes among the 22 cast in the preseason poll, just like the Utes.

"They have some real tough players who have been around," Bryant said.