The Utes announced that season tickets will go on sale Monday, for as little as $100 in the upper bowl of the Huntsman Center.

Call 801-581-UTIX to buy over the phone, or visit www.UtahUtes.com. Fans also can visit the Huntsman Center ticket office.

Tickets in the lower bowl of the Huntsman Center cost as little as $306 for the season, the Utes said, and two five-game packages also are being offered for as little as $25 in the upper bowl and $75 in the lower bowl -- though those packages won't go on sale until Oct. 22.

The "Saturday Plan" includes games against UC Irvine, Missouri State, Air Force, San Diego State and New Mexico. The "BYU Plan" includes games against Dixie State, Brigham Young, TCU, Wyoming and Colorado State.

Single-game tickets go on sale Nov. 1.

The Utes don't have a scholarship to offer him next season, but Lone Peak's Josh Sharp is making a recruiting visit starting today just the same.

Coaches evidently are hoping to lure the 6-foot-7 forward into the program as a walk-on next season, with the promise that he will receive a scholarship after returning from a two-year LDS Church mission, presumably in time for the 2011-12 season.

As part of his visit, Sharp is expected to play with the current members of the team during an "open-gym" sort of voluntary workout Saturday.

And that's just part of a busy weekend for the current Utes, who also are expected to cheer participants in the Young Alumni Scholarship 5K race in the morning and venture onto the field at the end of the third quarter of the football game against Utah State in the afternoon, when coach Jim Boylen will urge fans to attend the annual "Night With the Utes" on Oct. 12.

Coach Jim Boylen has hardly stopped riding his players hard in practice. Junior forward Shaun Green, for example, frequently seems to endure a lot of coaching criticism, and senior guard Chris Grant took a lot of heat when he practiced poorly the other day.

But Boylen consistently maintains that he loves the players he has, and has been pleasantly surprised lately by a few of them -- including junior guard Lawrence Borha, who has been burdened in the past by a reputation as an inconsistent and inattentive player.

"He's getting it," Boylen said. "He has more sense of urgency. ... You have purpose, you have to have focus, and he's getting there."

Boylen was careful to note that Borha -- now sporting closely cropped hair, instead of his old braided look -- was making "progress, not perfection" in his effort to pay more attention and work on the details of his game. Same with sophomore guard Luka Drca, who only recently has been able to show Boylen what he can do, having been unable to play during the Utes' exhibition trip to Australia while he finished recovering from offseason shoulder surgery.

"He's one of my smartest players," Boylen said. "He's one of my players who understands how to play the game. .... He has a feel for that."

Guard Johnnie Bryant was disgusted with himself the other day. He had made only 79 percent of the three-pointers he shot after practice.

"I usually hit a lot more," he said.

In what appears to be a good demonstration of Bryant's dedication to having a strong final season with the Utes, the senior spent close to an hour shooting on his own at the other end of the gym after a rugged individual workout a few days ago.

His daily routine?

He takes 250 three-point shots, in sets of 25 from positions all around the the arc, dutifully recording on a slip of paper his makes and misses. After I watched him, he let me add up his totals -- he had hit 198 of his 250 shots. When I suggested that's pretty good, Bryant shook his head and said he typically hits about 216, and usually records a least a couple of perfect 25-for-25 sets.

That's pretty amazing, if you ask me, and figures to bode well for the upcoming season.

Although Bryant isn't facing a defender when he works on his shot in practice, making nearly 80 percent of his wide-open looks figures to improve what already was one of the best long-range shots on the team. Bryant made 88 of 208 shots last season -- that's 42.3 percent -- behind only forward Shaun Green, who hit 64 of 125 for 51.2 percent.

The Utes plan to hold open tryouts for walk-on players on Thursday, hoping to find at least one guy who can join the team for the upcoming season.

Director of basketball operations Jonathan Dykema said he expects somewhere between 35 and 50 guys to show up for the tryout in the HPER Complex on Thursday at 7 p.m. -- though finding the right candidate won't be easy.

The Utes need somebody who can practice with the team during its daily window between 12:30 and 3:30 p.m., who's a full-time student with a good grade-point average to remain eligible all season, and who can handle the stress of the added workload.

Oh, and he has to have some skills, too.

The Utes had expected to have football player A.J. Reilly available as a walk-on this season. But Reilly suffered a season-ending knee injury, and the Utes aren't sure whether he will recover in time to participate at all in the upcoming season.

Adding another walk-on would give them 14 players for workouts; the Utes have only 12 players on scholarship, after the offseason departure of forward Daniel Deane. Forward Sayre Brennan is the only walk-on at the moment.

Forward Kim Tillie sat out the limited individual workouts the Utes were allowed after they began fall semester a few weeks ago, in order to let his injured toe heal.

But the 6-foot-9 sophomore forward has been back at full speed for more than a week, and continues to impress coach Jim Boylen. "He looked good the other day," Boylen said. "Defensively, he's terrific. He's smarter than most foreign guys I've been around."

Tillie played more organized basketball than his teammates over the summer, helping his native France to a bronze medal at the Under-19 World Championships in Serbia -- he averaged 4.1 points and 3.1 rebounds -- before joining the Utes for their exhibition tour of Australia. Boylen has said he envisions Tillie as a "double-double" guy for the Utes.

Of course, he's still a kid who's susceptible to Boylen's crafty coaching.

When Tillie wasn't exploding through the end of a drill for a dunk the way Boylen wanted the other day, the coach screamed at him: "You're from France, right?!"

Tillie nodded.

"Well, that guy's from Germany!" Boylen yelled while pointing at the team manager acting as the defender in the drill. "Dunk on his head!"

And what do you know? Next time through the drill, Tillie blew through the contact the defender made with a big football blocking pad and elevated for a thunderous dunk. Boylen said it was just a matter of motivating Tillie with a scenario he would understand.

"That was great," he said later.

The floor of the Huntsman Center is a mess, strewn with electronic parts, black metal beams, cables, pulleys and a couple of utility trucks with the workers who use them. There's no room to so much as dribble a basketball, let alone conduct a practice, so the Utes are having to hold their pre-season workouts in a gym in the nearby HPER Complex.

And they could hardly be happier about it.

The Huntsman Center is a mess because workers are busy installing the new video scoreboard -- one of the capital improvements that athletic director Chris Hill announced last spring as a product of the Utes' partnership with Utah Sports Properties to manage all of their corporate sponsorship opportunities. Utah Sports Properties has committed $2 million to the improvements, which might be pretty close to what the Utes need to pay for the new scoreboard.

After all, director of basketball operations Jonathan Dykema said the new scoreboard is expected to look a lot like the one installed at Indiana University two years ago, and that cost the Hoosiers $1.99 million.

"I don't know what the dollar amount is," coach Jim Boylen said, "but I'm thankful for it."

No doubt, fans will be thankful, too.

The previous scoreboard -- gone now -- might have been nice when it was installed in 1994, but it was all but awful the last few seasons, when the video displays were so faint and washed out that fans had a hard time seeing the images clearly from just about anywhere in the arena. Presumably, that's going to change, and fans will have a good sharp view of Boylen ranting and raving in his first season on the sideline.

The Utes expect the installation of the new scoreboard to be finished by about the second week of October. Then, after a couple of days of testing, it's expected to make its debut during the "Night With the Utes" celebration of the first day of practice on Oct. 12.

The Utes did not hold a traditional "Midnight Madness" last season, holding their "Night with the Utes" nearly two weeks after daily practices began.

But that's about to change.

Although they're not shooting for midnight exactly, the Utes will hold their first official practice of the season at the first allowable opportunity on Oct. 12. Coach Jim Boylen is still verifying the details before officially making the announcement, but said the workout probably will begin at 9:30 that night the Huntsman Center -- in conjunction with the women's team and following the volleyball team's rivalry match against Brigham Young.

"At first, we weren't going to do it," Boylen said. "And then I said, 'We need to do it.' So we're going to do it."

It will be the first chance, obviously, for the public to get a look at Boylen on the sideline and newcomers Tyler Kepkay, Carlon Brown and Morgan Grim on the court. The Utes will open the season a month later, playing host to South Carolina Upstate on Nov. 9 -- after exhibition games the previous week against Montana Tech and Northwest Nazarene.

Although three weeks remain before the official start of daily practice, the Utes were allowed to hold their first full-team workout this week -- so long as it remained under the weekly limit of two hours that coaches are allowed to spend with their players.

So the Utes went for 90 minutes early in the morning on Thursday, with apparently mixed results.

Coach Jim Boylen said he's pleased with his players and said they comprise an intelligent team, but they're still not doing everything the way he wants. The Utes fell 20 minutes behind "right off the bat," he said, because he had to spend too much time re-teaching certain important details.

"I've raised the expectations, and these guys practice sometimes like there's no consequences to their actions," he said. "We're not going to play that way."

Boylen was particularly annoyed that the veterans on the team were not mindful enough to avoid putting two rookies in the same group for drills, a recipe for confusion because the new guys -- junior-college transfer guard Tyler Kepkay and freshman guard Carlon Brown and forward Morgan Grim -- are still learning.

"The good things are we have a very good shooting team and we have a very intelligent team," Boylen said. "We picked up all the stuff I threw at these guys pretty quick. Now, we're not doing it always doing it right and we're not doing it hard enough, but we know what we're doing.

"The bad things are, we don't communicate, we don't help each other and we don't have any clue about how hard we have to practice," he added. "But I'm happy with them, I'm thankful for the players I have, and we're going to keep working hard."

Now comes the interesting part.

Yes, the Utes have lined up four incoming recruits from far-flung parts of the country -- Kansas, Texas, Michigan and Utah -- whose development will be fascinating to track as new coach Jim Boylen's first recruiting class.

But what might be even more intriguing is finding out which of the current players is going to lose the lottery in order to allow all of the newcomers to fit onto the team.

The Utes will have to subtract one of their current underclassmen on scholarship in order to fit all four of the new players onto the team in 2008-09 and still abide by NCAA scholarship limits. And that means that several guys figure to be auditioning this season for their basketball futures, unless 7-foot-1 center Luke Nevill has such a phenomenal year that he leaves school early for the NBA Draft.

Who will it be?

Unless one of the regulars has some unforeseen conflict with the new coaching staff that inspires a transfer -- call it the Daniel Deane Effect -- my best guess is either point guard Curtis Eatmon or shooting guard Luka Drca.

Eatmon, after all, was the one player who seemed to disappoint during the team's exhibition tour of Australia over the summer. He played little, and poorly, while Drca has yet to show Boylen what he can do because of his offseason shoulder surgery kept him from participating.

Meanwhile, everybody else seems to have either solidified his role with the team or established himself as a promising enough newcomer that Boylen honored the scholarship offers made to them by former coach Ray Giacoletti -- rather than cut ties, the way the Utes did with junior-college power forward Nemanja Calasan. Calasan had committed to the Utes, but didn't fit into Boylen's vision for the program and wound up at Purdue.

Of course, a lot can happen over the course of a season.

Somebody could flunk out, or get homesick and leave. One of this season's incoming players could decide he really doesn't care for Boylen, or vice versa. Or somebody could enjoy a surprising breakout season while others unexpectedly struggle.

That's what will be so interesting to monitor.

Judging by some of the comments attached to an article in the Wichita Eagle about Jordan Cyphers committing to the Utes over the weekend, not a lot of people in Kansas are happy about it.

One comment, in particular, speculated that Cyphers chose the Utes only after hometown Wichita State, which had been recruiting him, received an oral commitment from more highly regarded guard Toure Murray -- though some articles have spelled his name "Murry."

Interestingly, in any case, Murray (or Murry) is a teammate at Klein Forest High School in Houston of incoming Utah recruit Chris Hines, who committed to the Utes months ago.

The article about Cyphers mentions what his father told me over the weekend, too, about how Cyphers was impressed at having met coach Jerry Sloan of the Jazz during his recruiting visit to Salt Lake City last weekend, as well as former All-American Keith Van Horn.

The Utes are still planning to entertain shooting guard Jordan Cyphers of Southeast High School in Kansas on a recruiting trip to campus this weekend, but two high-profile players believed to be recruiting targets of new coach Jim Boylen are not expected to visit.

Point guards Oscar Bellfield of Westchester High in California and Demetri Goodson of Klein Collins High in Texas won't be invited to campus, according to sources close to the program, even though the scout.com recruiting network says that both have significant interest in the Utes and have received scholarship offers.

Cyphers will visit along with the three players who already have committed to join the Utes next season -- guard Jace Tavita of Brighton High School, guard Chris Hines of Klein Forest High School in Texas, and center Jason Washburn of Battle Creek Central High School in Michigan.

It will be the first time since he was hired that Boylen entertains prospects on campus.

The Utes also plan to bring forward Jared Swopshire of the IMG Academy in Florida to campus for a visit, though a date has not been set. He and forward Josh Sharp of Lone Peak High School are the only other players the Utes are heavily recruiting.

Swopshire made his first recruiting trip last weekend to Clemson, according to PalmettoSports.com. That site said Swopshire also plans to visit Marquette and perhaps Louisville and Cincinnati, and that he doesn't have a favorite.

The major things, forward Stephen Weigh can handle. Scoring is not usually much of a problem for the sophomore from Australia.

So like many of his teammates, Weigh is working on the "little things" in his game in preparation for next season.

Coach Jim Boylen "has told me, he thinks I can score and I 'get it' offensively," Weigh said. "But it's just the little things, like running my lanes -- I wasn't sprinting my lanes -- and attacking the offensive glass every time, boxing my man out. Just the little things and tough things that he wants, when my scoring is not happening, so I can have something else to rely on."

The Utes have been working out with Boylen in small groups this week, as allowed by NCAA rules. They're allowed two hours of practice per week, in addition to the weightlifting they're doing three times a week and the sprints they're running on the track once a week.

And though forward Kim Tillie is not expected to join the workouts for another week to allow his injured toe to heal, Boylen reported that "we're doing great."

Weigh certainly sees it that way.

He was encouraged by his performance during the Utes' exhibition tour of his native country earlier this summer, when he averaged 18.2 points and 7.2 rebounds in six games. He played more minutes than anybody else on the team, shot 40 percent from three-point range and hit 18 of his 22 free throws.

"I was impressed with myself," he said. "I was consistent through the whole trip. That was my biggest thing. And also, coach is always harping on me to be a complete player and whatnot. So obviously I had a few good games rebounding-wise and my defense is becoming better. Still a long ways to go, but there's improvement."

Not just with him, either.

"In any program, the main thing is to win," he said. "Win and improve. So I think we are improving. As coach says, we're improving with baby steps. We still have a long way to go, but if we just keep improving, winning will come."

Technically, sure, it's football season. But some fans just can't wait for the leather to hit the hardwood.

For them, we have a suggestion.

Take a look at the preseason report on the Mountain West Conference over at ESPN.com, authored by our man Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper. Coach Jim Boylen is a promiment part of his lead piece, about the coaching turnover in the league heading into next season.

In it, Boylen addresses some of the challenges of coaching in an unfamiliar league, having taken over the Utes after working as an assistant coach for Tom Izzo at Michigan State in the Big Ten Conference.

"Familiarity with a team can be comforting," Boylen said. "In the Big Ten at Michigan State, we knew what Michigan and Wisconsin and Northwestern and everyone else liked to do. But you still have to go out and stop it. There's a little bit of fear with the unknown, but that's just the reality this first year. I think it's going to take all of us at least one time through the league to really learn about one another."

Graney, who has covered basketball in the league perhaps better than anyone for years, also provides capsules on each of the teams, an update on the health of UNLV coach Lon Kruger, and a vast variety of other tidbits and stats. Enough, perhaps, to get any eager fan up to speed with still more than a month before practice begins.

In case you missed it over the holiday weekend, it might be worth taking a look at my colleague Jay Drew's popular recruiting blog item from last week.

In it, he points out how the Utes continue to recruit players for the 2008 class, in the common practice of "over-recruiting" to account for unforseen circumstances like transfers or academic failures.

The Utes already have a full complement of prospects who have committed to sign letters of intent, but coach Jim Boylen is still chasing some players who appear to be fairly long shots.

One of them is Oscar Bellfield, a 6-foot-1 point guard from Westchester High School in California who injured his groin and essentially missed the summer club basketball season. Another is 6-1 point guard Demetri Goodson of Klein Collins High School in Texas, whom -- like Bellfield -- the Utes appear to be chasing, in part, just in case Brighton's Jace Tavita fails to qualify academically.

The Utes reportedly have offered scholarships to both of them, as well as 6-7 forward Jared Swopshire of the IMG Academy in Florida and 6-4 shooting guard Jordan Cyphers of Southeast High School in Kansas. Only trouble for the Utes is that all four are being pursued by plenty of other quality programs, such as Oklahoma, Gonzaga, Marquette, Cal, Arkansas and UNLV.

Forward Kim Tillie played well for the Utes during their exhibition tour of Australia last month, averaging 7.3 points and 8.8 rebounds and convincing new coach Jim Boylen that he can be a consistent "double-double" guy in the Mountain West Conference.

One problem.

The 6-foot-9 sophomore was bothered the whole trip by a sore big toe on his left foot. And though Tillie played on it and did not have too much trouble once he warmed up, he and the coaches started to worry that the toe was broken.

Boylen was relieved to learn that it's not -- doctors performed a magnetic-resonance imaging exam on the toe three days ago -- but said he plans to temporarily hold Tillie out of the limited individual work the Utes will begin Tuesday in order to allow him to heal completely.

"He'll be OK," Boylen said, "but we'll bring him back kind of slow."

That way, not only will Tillie have more time to heal, Boylen said -- Tillie is expected to join the individual workouts Sept. 15 -- but he will be able to get accustomed to an orthotic device that he will wear in his shoe to help manage the injury.

Boylen also figures Tillie's time off will give him more time to work with freshman Morgan Grim, a fellow power forward for whom the coach has less of a feel at this point.

Incidentally, here's a report on how Tillie performed playing for his native France at the U-19 World Championships earlier this summer. In short, it says he has shown "intriguing abilities," but "doesn't particularly stand out with his basketball IQ and feel for the game." He "seems to be a hard worker," however.