All right, that one's on me.

After all, I was the doofus who insisted the Utes would have almost no problem beating TCU tonight -- what with junior guard Henry Salter having been suspended and taking his scoring average and shooting touch with him out of the arena. (He was not even with his teammates for the game.)

Nice call, eh?

Instead, the Utes trudged their way to another defeat, 67-61 at nearly empty Daniel-Meyer Coliseum -- this one not feeling so much agonizing or dispiriting as it did inevitable. Even coach Jim Boylen sounded as if he's resigned to this season finishing unspectacularly when he spoke wearily and shrugged his shoulders outside the locker room after the game.

"This is where this team is at," he said. "This is where we're at. Gotta get tougher. Gotta grow. Gotta finish things off. This is a process, as much as I don't like it ... this is what this team has to go through -- handle adversity and grow and learn. Nothing has changed since day one."

No anger. No fury. No fuming over the refs.

Just calm, cool, almost detached discussion.

Sort of eerie, to be honest.

But can we blame him? He's seen this so many times before, he has to be wondering what good he did with all of his drills designed to improve his players' toughness and play-making ability in pressure situations.

After all, the Utes again fell apart at the free-throw line (stop us if you've heard this one) with the game in the balance -- four misses in the final 6:10, and just one meaningful basket in the final 7:40 -- and let the Horned Frogs make all the big plays down the stretch.

Now, they're at risk of needing to win a play-in game just to reach the main field for the Mountain West Conference tournament in Las Vegas next month. Of course, that's a long shot -- they would need to lose out, have TCU and Air Force win at least one more game, and have Wyoming upset league-leading Brigham Young at the Marriott Center -- but these Utes can't take anything for granted, any more.

And while the players insist they still believe in themselves and each other, the looks I saw in some of their eyes after the game seemed to hint at a sad sense of resignation -- similar to last year -- that they're not holding out much hope of turning things around for a strong finish.

Among other tidbits worth mentioning:

-- Center Luke Nevill dominated when he was in the game (he pulled the Utes back into the game, after they trailed by five early in the second half) but strained against foul trouble for the third straight game. He played only 21 minutes, scoring 15 points and grabbing seven rebounds. Of course, he also endured a massive swat from TCU's Alvaro Parker with 3:10 left that helped the Frogs pull away.

-- The defense in which the Utes take so much pride was not exactly smothering. The Horned Frogs fought back from an 11-point deficit and built a 30-29 halftime lead by shooting 48 percent, the best of the season for one of the league's worst shooting teams.

-- Once again, the Utes failed to rally from a late deficit. They fell to 1-9 when trailing by halftime (winning at Air Force is the only win in that bunch) and 0-9 when training with five minutes remaining. They trailed just 55-52 at the five-minute mark, but couldn't make a play. On their next three possessions, Nevill was called for charging, guard Luka Drca hit one of two free throws, and Nevill had his shot rejected. By then, the Frogs had a six-point lead that was never threatened.

-- Senior guard Chris Grant saw his first meaningful action in weeks, playing about 90 seconds at the end of the first half after Johnnie Bryant picked up his third foul and Luka Drca committed an atrocious turnover. He did not record a statistic, however.