Coach Jim Boylen was kind enough to call after the Utes beat UTEP last night, and he sounded awfully excited about how hard his team played -- on both sides of the ball.

"Our offense was really good," he said. "We shared the ball, moved it around, made our free throws. ... And our defense really stymied them."

The Utes broke out the triangle-and-two defense for the first time since the Gonzaga game, in an effort to slow the nation's seventh-leading scorer, Stefon Jackson, who entered the game averaging 23.6 points per game.

And boy, did it work.

The Utes held the Miners to 24 percent shooting for the first 31 minutes, and Jackson -- though he finished with 20 points -- did not crack double-figures until about the final five minutes for an 81-69 victory for the Utes. Not that he gave the Utes much credit for it.

"I've been seeing that all year," he said. "Tulsa did that. Houston did it. We expected it."

In any case, the 18-13 Utes are moving on to play 21-13 Tulsa on the road Monday night, after the Golden Hurricane beat Miami of Ohio in the first round of the CBI last night for its 11th win in 14 games. Both UTEP and Tulsa, by the way, drew about 5,300 fans -- which probably would not have been enough for the Utes to break even on a home game in the tournament.