For what it's worth, coach Jim Boylen said he doesn't believe the TCU Horned Frogs complained to the Mountain West Conference office about the thrown elbow that resulted in a one-game suspension for guard Luka Drca.

Boylen said he spoke with TCU coach Neil Dougherty, who agreed that the incident between Drca and TCU's Brent Haskett last weekend occurred during the heat of the moment and wasn't egregious enough to warrant a suspension.

"He was great about it," Boylen said.

That means that somebody else brought the incident to the attention of the league -- conference officials declined to comment, though sources said it was a TV station, probably The Mtn., which broadcast the game -- whose referees did not call a foul on Drca for the elbow that dropped Haskett to the floor.

In any case, Boylen said that however disappointed he might have been at not learning until Tuesday afternoon that the league was looking into the Saturday incident, he was not disputing that Drca violated the league's sportsmanship rule.

"You have to control your emotions in a game," he said. "That's what this level is all about, handling the pressure and controlling your emotions."

Without Drca, the Utes will be left to rely mostly on guards Tyler Kepkay and Johnnie Bryant to run the offense at Colorado State on Saturday -- though Boylen said seldom-used senior Chris Grant can probably expect to see some action. Losing Drca "hurts out creative ability and our size and our defense," Boylen said, "but that's why you get 13 scholarships. We'll do what we can."

Utah's Luka Drca has been suspended for one game for hitting TCU's Brent Hackett with an elbow during the Utes' victory over the Horned Frogs at the Huntsman Center last weekend.

Drca will not make the trip when the Utes visit Colorado State in Fort Collins on Saturday.

"I feel bad," Drca said. "It's a bad time, but I messed up."

The Mountain West Conference issued the suspension today, saying Drca's elbow at the 11:05 mark of the first half fell under the definition of "physical abuse" and violated the league's sportsmanship policy. Drca hit Hackett in the chest area but was not called for a foul on the play, which left Hackett rolling on the floor in pain as the teams ran downcourt after Hackett missed a jump shot.

"It was an emotional thing, I guess," Drca said.

Coach Jim Boylen said he was "disappointed" in the timing, having learned only on Tuesday that the league was reviewing the incident. "But I understand the rules and we have to follow them," he said. "I didn't think it was a flagrant foul. I thought it was a reaction to an earlier hit in the same play. But we have to be accountable for our actions."

Sources have told me that the incident was "brought to the attention" of the league after the game, leading to the suspension, though I don't know whether the Frogs complained directly or benefitted from somebody doing so on their behalf. Also, Hackett supposedly acknowledged to TCU coach Neil Dougherty that he had instigated an exchange with Drca, seemingly supporting Boylen's view of the incident.

In any case, losing Drca obviously hurts an already thin Utah bench. The Utes will have to rely on guards Tyler Kepkay and Johnnie Bryant to run the show by themselves.

Obviously, the Utes aren't exactly tearing it up these days, but at least they're not taking their slow fade to the bottom of the Mountain West Conference standings lightly. Coach Jim Boylen was among several coaches and other team officials who slept in the office after working late into the night before an early-morning workout and film session.

In fact, Boylen emerged from the film session still wearing the same pants and shoes that he wore while the Utes lost to Wyoming 69-64 at the Huntsman Center last night.

"This is a process," he said, echoing many similar comments from weeks gone by, "and again, I'm not giving up. I'm not over here feeling sorry for ourselves. We're going to keep grinding this thing out. This is what it is. This is what makes those trophies worth so much. It is, you know? It's a learning process. We have a young team."

Agreed, but when is it going to grow up and act like it wants to win?

Once again, the Utes played most of that game against the Cowboys as if they were bored and would rather have been somewhere else. As a result, they have lost four of five, and driven Boylen to offer reminders that the Utes at least have improved enough defensively -- they held Wyoming to 38.6 percent shooting -- that they had a chance to beat the Cowboys.

"Last year, from what I've heard, and what I've been around, this team would have lost that game by 20, because we would have given up 46.6 [percent shooting] or whatever it is," he said. "I don't like comparing it to last year, but my point is, I have to look for things where we're growing. The fans and everybody wants it in wins and losses, and I understand how this works. You get paid to do this job to win. But I'm going to evaluate my team on a game-by-game basis on what we're doing and not doing. We were not good offensively last night because we didn't make shots."

Not surprisingly, coach Jim Boylen has called for an early-morning practice tomorrow, after his Utes lost to Wyoming 69-64 at the Huntsman Center tonight ... so this is going to be short and sweet.

Clearly, the Utes are doing their best to disprove the theory that defense is the key to winning.

While they have managed to stay close in games by virtue of their vastly improved defense, their frequent impotence on offense has been to blame for their four losses in the last five games.

Not only have the Utes missed potential winning or tying shots in all of those games -- guard Tyler Kepkay did it for the third time in that stretch, by missing a running three-pointer in the waning seconds against the Cowboys -- but they have shot and scored miserably, compared to what they had managed the rest of the time.

For example, the Utes were scoring 70.5 points per game before returning to league play two weeks ago, but have scored only 59.8 points per game in their four losses since. They're also shooting just 43.8 percent (and a miserable 18-for-64 from three-point range) in those losses, after hitting 50.7 percent to lead the league before that.

"We have to shoot the ball well to be good," Boylen said.

You know, like they did against TCU.

Probably the biggest problem against Wyoming, though, wasn't the missed shot at the end of the game, but rather the 10-minute stretch the Utes endured without a basket late in the first half and early in the second. They missed 10 straight shots in that span, allowing the Cowboys to build a lead they never gave back -- and that's a team that had not won back-to-back games all season.

How much do you think Boylen dreams of having some guards who can drive, create and get to the free-throw line like Wyoming's Brandon Ewing and Brad Jones? Those guys absolutely dissected the Utes' backcourt, combining for 38 points, 13 rebounds (all by the diminuitive Jones) and 13-for-13 free-throw shooting.

The good news for the Utes is that Brad Tinsley is still interested in playing for them, presuming they would still be interested in him.

The bad news?

He's probably not interested in walking on, even for just one year, his father told me today. And that would eliminate one potential way for the Utes to sign the highly regarded 6-foot-3 point guard from Oregon City High School in Oregon, even though they already have committed all of their scholarships for next season.

"That's going to be something that's going to be a dilemma," Carl Tinsley said.

The Utes had been one of the top three college choices for Brad Tinsley (along with Cal) before he signed with Pepperdine in November. But now that Tinsley has been freed of his commitment to the Waves in the wake of coach Vance Walberg's resignation -- here's some video, albeit grainy and hard to watch -- he's back on the market and re-assessing his college possibilities.

"The Utes still are definitely a possibility," Carl Tinsley said. "Brad has a great deal of respect" for coach Jim Boylen and assistant coach Chris Jones. The Tinsleys visited with the coaches after attending the Utes' game against Oregon at the Rose Garden in Portland in December.

But the elder Tinsley said the family has been receiving offers from across the country, and will sort through the list in a couple of weeks. From there, they plan to narrow the list and arrange recruiting visits.

"I would think that Utah would be one of those four visits," Carl Tinsley said. "I can't guarantee that, because I haven't talked to [Brad] about it. But unlike the other schools that have recruited him, he does have a very good relationship that has developed with the coaches there."

Carl Tinsley said that although his son has a 3.7 grade-point average, he's probably not likely to get much academic or need-based financial aid, so "somehow, we would have to work out the financial end of it" if his son wants to join the Utes.

Of course, the Utes might not be quite so interested anymore, considering they already have signed guards Chris Hines and Jace Tavita to join the team next season. But I'll see what we can find out about their perspective on the matter ...

Coach Jim Boylen has been doing his best to make the Wyoming Cowboys sound like a tough opponent for his Utes tonight in the Huntsman Center.

But not even the folks in Wyoming are buying it.

"The reality is that it will be awful tough for the Cowboys to come away with a victory," the Laramie Daily Boomerang said.

The oddsmakers don't believe the Utes should have much problem beating the Pokes for the sixth straight time at home, either, making them a 14-point favorite tonight. The Utes have not been such overwhelming favorites since they were expected to beat Idaho State by 21 1/2 -- they wound up winning by 17 -- and are 5-4 as a favorite this season.

Heck, the far more intriguing game is the one pitting the Utah and Wyoming women's teams at the Arena-Auditorium in Laramie tonight.

The Utes are 16-3 overall and 5-0 in the league, while the Cowgirls are ranked 15th in the AP Top 25, 18-1 overall, riding a 16-game home winning streak, and 6-0 in the league. Now that's a match-up.

Maybe you've already run across the story in The Oregonian detailing the release of guard Brad Tinsley from his commitment to Pepperdine, in the wake of the midseason resignation of coach Vance Walberg.

In any case, understand it could affect the Utes.

A 6-foot-3 senior at Oregon City High School in Oregon, Tinsley was one of their recruiting targets, until he signed with the Waves in November. But with Tinsley back on the market, it's not inconceivable that he could ultimately join the Utes -- although it would require not receiving a basketball scholarship, at least for one year.

The Utes already have committed all of their available scholarships for next season to incoming players, including Lone Peak's Josh Sharp. Sharp had been expected to walk-on, but has been assured he will receive the scholarship that became available when sophomore forward Stephen Weigh quit the team and returned home to Australia.

But Sharp is expected to use the scholarship for only one year before departing on an LDS Church mission, potentially making it available for Tinsley after that. Any number of other changes could occur between now and then, too, that could create a scholarship opening.

So the trick -- presuming Tinsley remains interested in the Utes, and we're endeavoring to reach him -- would be to find a way for Tinsley to join the team either as a walk-on or under the aegis of an academic or some other type of scholarship, at least for the first year.

Tinsley's father told The Oregonian that Pepperdine remains a possibility, though the family will consider other options. Part of the allure of Pepperdine for Tinsley was his close relationship with assistant coach Mark Campbell. However, Campbell's future with the Waves will be uncertain until they hire a new coach.

So, you were out on the concourse getting a hot dog when the Utes showed the latest installment in their series of the greatest moments in school basketball history on the Huntsman Center video screen?

No problem.

The Utes have been posting the highlights narrated by longtime radio play-by-play man Bill Marcroft on YouTube -- along with video of coach Jim Boylen's weekly press conferences in the Huntsman Center. (Forgive me for not detailing this earlier, since they have been doing it for a few weeks.) The press conferences can be seen live at www.UtahUtes.com, but the Utes have been archiving the footage on YouTube.

To find them, search YouTube for the keyword "uathletics," and up they'll pop. They seem to run a few days behind with the press conference footage, but all the top moments that they have shown so far are on there -- most recently, the Utes' victory over rival Brigham Young in 1983, when Pace Mannion led them to a thrilling triple-overtime victory on the road.

Senior guard Johnnie Bryant just broke a record that Nick Jacobsen held for three-pointers in a game, which led me to wonder whether Bryant has a chance at breaking some of the other shooting records that Jacobsen holds for the Utes.

Answer?

Probably not.

While Bryant is enjoying the best shooting season of his career, he's not likely to hit as many three-pointers as Jacobsen did in his record-setting 2003-04 season -- or even as many as Bryant hit last season. Jacobsen holds the school records with 99 three-pointers made in '03-04, and 227 attempted, with Bryant second on both lists with 88 of 208 last year.

At his current rate (and presuming the Utes play two games in the Mountain West Conference tournament), Bryant will hit only about 83 three-pointers this season, and attempt about 175 for a career-best 47.1 shooting percentage.

Of course, while Bryant has been averaging 2.67 three-pointers per game overall, he has been hitting 3.8 per game in conference play. If he keeps up or improves that pace, he has a chance to challenge Jacobsen. At that rate, Bryant would hit 97 of 203 three-pointers -- again, presuming the Utes play two games of the league tournament.

Bryant won't be reaching Jacobsen's career marks, though, no matter what. Bryant would need to average nearly 6 1/2 three-pointers per game the rest of the season to equal the 287 threes that Jacobsen made from 2000 to 2004. And he would have to attempt more than 16 per game to reach the career mark of 673 three-pointers attempted.

Center Luke Nevill has lost his position as the top scorer for the Utes this season. Guard Johnnie Bryant has passed him, on the strength of the 49 points in the last two games that earned him Mountain West Conference player of the week honors.

But that hasn't stopped the rest of the league from admiring the 7-foot-1 center.

Coach Neil Dougherty of TCU said that Nevill has become "a lot stronger" and more physical than he was last year, and "passes the ball a lot better than he has before." Similarly, Wyoming's Heath Schroyer credited Nevill with impacting the game "a lot" both by producing himself and by creating opportunities for his teammates.

And coach Jim Boylen could not agree more.

Speaking at his weekly press conference today, he credited Nevill for "buying in" more and more, and becoming an increasing presence on the defensive end. While his scoring average is down to 13.7 points per game -- Bryant leads the Utes at 13.9 -- Nevill is leading the league with 30 blocked shots and averaging 7.3 rebounds per game. He blocked 33 shots all of last season.

"He's taking more ownership with how the team does, not just how he does," Boylen said. "He's in better shape than he's ever been in his life. That helps. And I think he's being held accountable to a higher standard. ... It hasn't always been easy for him, and it hasn't always been fun around here for him, but anything worth anything is going to be hard."

Finally!

The Utes finally had a player named the Mountain West Conference player of the week today, with senior guard Johnnie Bryant earning the award, after making a school-record eight three-pointers in a victory over TCU last weekend.

Bryant became the first Ute to win the award this season, after scoring 49 points on 16-of-26 shooting off the bench in two games last week -- the Utes lost in overtime at New Mexico, before beating TCU -- including 13-for-21 shooting from three-point range.

For the season, Bryant is now leading the Utes in scoring at 13.9 points per game, and shooting a career-high 54.8 percent from the field -- including 47.1 percent from three-point range.

So the Utes recovered their footing a bit by beating TCU at home on Saturday, behind a school-record eight three-pointers by guard Johnnie Bryant.

What else happened in the Mountain West Conference?

Most notably, Curtis Terry and the UNLV Rebels kept bombing away and beat San Diego State 72-69 on the road with a last-minute three-pointer. That moves the Rebels into a tie for the league lead with Brigham Young -- and they have the edge in the title race, having already blasted the Cougars in Las Vegas and won two of three league games on the road.

The rematch at the Marriott Center is Feb. 16, by which time the Cougar home winning streak could be 43 games.

The Cougs earned their 42nd straight win by snapping out of their shooting slump and overwhelming New Mexico 83-66, sending the Lobos to their second straight road loss and dropping them even with the Utes in the loss column of the league standings.

And in the meaningless game of the week category, Wyoming beat Colorado State 73-58 at home, snapping a five-game losing streak and apparently infusing the Cowboys with some ridiculously out-of-touch optimism.

"Hopefully, this is the start of our season -- right now," guard Brandon Ewing said.

Don’t count on it.

The Cowboys visit the Utes on Wednesday night, and just beat (at home) a CSU team that has not won in six league games and doesn't have much hope of a turnaround with center Stuart Creason still sidelined with a foot injury.

"Rome wasn't built in a day," coach Tim Miles said.

Coach Jim Boylen said it best himself. While beating TCU 74-58 at the Huntsman Center today was big for his Utes -- snapping their agonizing three-game losing streak -- it was still only one game.

Truer words were never spoken.

Fact is, the Utes absolutely should have beaten the Horned Frogs, who -- despite their encouraging start this season -- remain generally overmatched and definitely among the worst road teams in the Mountain West Conference. The Frogs have won only once in 14 games on the road since beating the Utes last season, and losing to them again would have signaled that the Utes were really in trouble.

Instead, the Utes appear to be a team that might well be closer to the top of the league than the bottom, despite their record. After all, two of their last three losses were on the road and in overtime against two of the best home teams in the league -- San Diego State and New Mexico -- and the other was a near-miss against solid Brigham Young in a toss-up rivalry game.

And now is their chance to prove it.

While the Utes endured that rough stretch of the past week or so, they now have a chance to climb back into the league race, with upcoming games against the two worst teams in the league, Wyoming and Colorado State. Win 'em both, as they should, and the Utes suddenly have a winning record in the conference again, and perhaps enough confidence to carry them to greater success during the second half of the season, against even the top teams in the league.

"Every win is a must-win," Boylen said. "For this program, where we're at right now, what we have to do to build it, I think every night is an opportunity to grow and learn."

Among other tidbits worth mentioning:

-- Guard Johnnie Bryant set a school record by making eight three-pointers for his 24 points, breaking a mark he had shared with Phil Cullen, Phil Dixon and Nick Jacobsen. His 8-for-14 performance was part of a season-best 13-for-24 showing for the team, which included four three-pointers by forward Shaun Green. Still, Boylen said he thought Bryant missed too many of his open threes, and Bryant agreed. "It's going to be a rough film session," he said.

-- Guard Luka Drca was phenomenal, handing out 10 assists with four rebounds a steal and no turnovers (in only 25 minutes!) and again demonstrating that the offense moves best when he's in the game and distributing. "Unbelievable," Boylen said. "Is that guy a good big guard, or what? ... He just executed, found guys, found Luke for a dunk, made plays on the pick-and-roll, found the weak-side."

-- Forward Kim Tillie played again, after missing another game while recovering from a stress fracture, and this performance wasn't as encouraging. He helped some, but also fouled out in 10 minutes, having contributed five points and a steal.

While the Utes are hoping to finally end their torturous losing streak when they meet TCU at the Huntsman Center today, the Horned Frogs are trying to build on their only road win of the season.

And coach Neil Dougherty tried to focus his players' attention by piping crowd noise into practice this week. "I don't know if it is the answer, but I think it tells the guys that, 'I've never seen coach do this, this must be something different,'" Dougherty said. "We have to be up to the challenge."

Meanwhile, the Utes are 10 1/2-point favorites, according to Covers.com. And though the Horned Frogs have been one of the weakest teams in the league the past couple of seasons, they have beaten the Utes twice in the last four meetings.

The Utes haven't exactly enjoyed spectacular guard play recently, so coach Jim Boylen knows that his backcourt figures to face a strenuous test when it meets the TCU Horned Frogs at the Huntsman Center on Saturday.

"It's going to be good," he said. "We'll see how we respond to it."

The Horned Frogs have surprised the Mountain West Conference by winning three of their first four league games, largely on the strength of their high-pressure backcourt.

Junior transfer guard Henry Salter averages 15.4 points and leads the league in three-point shooting -- guard Lawrence Borha will draw the defensive assignment against him -- and the Frogs make up for poor overall shooting by making nearly 11 steals and forcing 19 turnovers per game and leading the league in offensive rebounds that result in second-chance opportunities.

"What they do, they don't have big guys, but they get the tipped rebound -- which to me is a loose ball -- because of their quickness," Boylen said. "A little bit like San Diego State. San Diego State gets a lot of tipped [rebounds] because they're long and quick. They might not get it, but they keep it alive for somebody else or they're better at the second jump than we are -- sort of the Dennis Rodman rebound."

"We're going to be prepared for it," Boylen added. "But it's different when you're playing against your scout team than it is against a team that does it every day with their top guys."

Speaking of free throws, coach Jim Boylen has had to alter his teaching strategy a little bit.

While he made the Utes run a variety of sprints when they missed certain free throws during practice earlier in the season, he has had to quit doing so, to avoid wearing out a team that is dangerously thin.

"I can't burn my guys' legs out," he said. "Earlier in the year, it was '17s' and 'down-and-backs.' ... I can't do that now, so we're doing push-ups."

Boylen said he has evaluated all of his players' form on free throws, and changed only a few of them -- including freshman guard Carlon Brown, junior center Luke Nevill (he held the ball too low before attempting a shot, Boylen said) and even junior guard Tyler Kepkay, the best foul shooter of the bunch.

"The more moving parts, the more room there is for something to break down," Boylen said. "It's like a car, a machine. So I try to shorten my guys' shots up, and get them on their toes and all of that. So if I see something mechanically wrong, I change it right away."

Kepkay, he said, was holding the ball against his stomach before he shot -- something Boylen believed led to Kepkay having a tendency to shift his balance ever-so-slightly backward as he shot. Kepkay is shooting 84.4 percent from the line this season, even after his crucial miss in the overtime loss at New Mexico the other night.

Past evaluation and practice, though, there isn't much Boylen feels he can do to improve free-throw shooting.

"If you over-talk about it? Now it's in their head," he said. "If you under-talk about it, you feel like you're not doing your job. If you put them in pressure situations and they make them in practice, what are you supposed to do? To me, you keep putting them in pressure situations, and it's going to kick in."

He has been practically the face of the Utes' free-throw problems the last three games, having missed the front end of one-and-one opportunities at crucial moments in each of the last three close losses.

But Luka Drca swears he has never been through anything like this, and that all of his shots have felt good leaving his hand.

"It's always the same" he said. "I don't know why, because I actually never miss a free throw before this."

That's not exacly true, considering Drca was only 4-of-7 this season before going 3-for-7 over the last three games. But he did shoot nearly 81 percent from the line last season, and coach Jim Boylen agreed that the missed free throws have not started to mess with his players' heads.

"No," he said emphatically. "I think if you told Luka Drca to go shoot two for a million dollars, he go up there and" ... Boylen licks his finger-tips, mimicking a player eager to handle the ball. "He's that kind of kid. He said, 'I've never missed free throws like this in my life.' And that guy's played a lot of basketball -- overseas, international teams."

Drca is hardly the only player who has had free-throw problems, however, with the Utes shooting just 54.5 percent as a team over the last three games. Center Luke Nevill has made just 8 of 17 foul shots, modestly better than Drca's rate.

Interesting thought from guard Lawrence Borha after practice tonight, when I asked him what the Utes could do to "fix" their recent problems down the stretch, so that they might emerge victorious the next time they face a make-or-break situation late in a game.

"I think we just have to go to a different person," he said. "I mean, TK had two chances to win the game. It didn't happen. So, we go to a new person to win the game."

Don't know if Borha meant that to sound as bad as it might, or suggest himself as the candidate instead of point guard Tyler Kepkay -- forward Shaun Green interrupted with his usual goofiness -- but I found it surprising that he was willing to be quite so honest with his appraisal. Usually, the players are much less revealing than that, and tend to stick to the broad talking points they pick up from coach Jim Boylen in his locker-room discussions with them.

Whether the comment hints at darker issues within the team, I couldn't say. So if I had to guess, I'd imagine it's probably just the voice of a guy who's frustrated at having lost three close games in a row. At the same time, though, maybe Borha has a point -- judging by the results so far.

Now, we have it from Snake himself.

Far from being disrespectful, coach Jim Boylen was the picture of friendliness and respect when he approached the notorious bald-and-tattooed superfan before the Utes and Lobos played at The Pit the other night.

"He really gave it to me before the game," said Snake, whose real name is Mark Tichenor. "I really was flattered by it. I really think he's going to be a good coach for you all. You'd better not let him get away. If I didn't have Steve Alford, I'd want this guy."

Tichenor said Boylen is the first visiting coach in his 30 years of attending New Mexico games who sought him out for an introduction -- "that's what kind of freaked me out," he said -- and teased him by knowing his real name.

"He said, 'Your real name is Mark Tichenor,'" Tichenor recalled. "'What kind of a name is that for a guy whose name is Snake? That's like an accountant whose name is Spike."

Tichenor said he felt honored that Boylen knew him -- Boylen said his players and assistant coaches had given him the heads-up about him -- and enjoyed teasing him both before and during the game. "I told him, 'You're crazier than I am,'" Tichenor said. "He's going to be a fun coach to have a fun time with. ... He took it right to me, man. I loved it."

Don't know how many of you might have noticed, but the San Diego State Aztecs found themselves in exactly the same situation against Brigham Young last night as the Utes did last weekend -- down one with the ball and barely 33 seconds left in the game.

And while we all know the Utes held the ball for one last shot and had the strategy backfire, the Aztecs operated a lot more like what coach Jim Boylen apparently would have preferred. They worked the ball around, probing, for about 15 seconds -- giving them about 18 left -- then commenced a play that resulted in two shots for forward Kyle Spain.

But Spain missed both of his contested mid-range shots, and the Cougars again survived for a 59-56 victory at the Marriott Center -- proving that even the "right" strategy is never fool-proof.

Coach Jim Boylen said he expects injured forward Kim Tillie to play again when the Utes play host to TCU at the Huntsman Center on Saturday -- which would be a huge help to their depleted frontcourt.

Speaking on his weekly radio show, Boylen also said that although he was wary of saying anything to reporters after the game, he thought that two of the five fouls that put center Luke Nevill on the bench for almost all of overtime of the 77-67 loss at San Diego State last night "didn't have to be called."

Without a doubt, losing Nevill only 20 seconds into overtime really hurt the Utes by forcing them to play a small lineup, which the Lobos outscored 17-7 in the extra period. Nevill had been pretty good in the second half, after not scoring in the first.

Boylen also repeatedly emphasized that he hopes fans understand that rebuilding the program will take some time. "We are getting there," he said. "We are getting better."

Received an e-mail from a New Mexico fan complaining about the behavior of Utah's players on the bench during the game last night, as well as coach Jim Boylen -- whom the fan accused of inappropriately confronting the notoriously manic, bald and tattooed fan nicknamed "Snake" who for years has cheered the Lobos and jeered opponents from a seat in the front-row of the student section at the Pit.

Turns out, though, Boylen evidently was just teasing.

In fact, Snake told my colleague Mark Smith of the Albuquerque Journal that he was impressed that Boylen knew his real name -- Mark Tichenor. And according to Tichenor (via Smith), he and Boylen engaged in some good-natured banter back and forth before the game, with Boylen teasing him about his name by saying that a guy named Mark Tichenor nicknamed "Snake" was like having an accountant nicknamed "Spike."

With any luck, I'll be able to reach Tichenor soon and get a first-hand version of his encounter with Boylen. But to hear Smith tell it, it was far more friendly and innocuous than my angry e-mailer made it sound. As for the supposed boorish behavior of the Utes on the bench? I don't have an answer, but doubt -- just based on the credibility of the complaint about Boylen -- that there is much to it.

Just for the record, having heard several complaints on the topic ... point guard Tyler Kepkay could not have "easily" hit center Luke Nevill wide open under the basket for the Utes' final shot of regulation in their 77-67 overtime loss at New Mexico last night.

I just finally watched the replays, and it looks pretty clear that Kepkay made the best play he could -- albeit from far away -- with New Mexico's Daniel Faris and J.R. Giddens having briefly double-teamed Kepkay after Nevill set a high screen.

Had Kepkay attempted to thread the needle with a pass to Nevill in the split-second that Giddens retreated to guard him, I'm pretty sure the ball would have been tipped or stolen.

And even if he had somehow sneaked a pass through, Kepkay would have had to do it almost the moment Nevill released from his screen, requiring Nevill to catch the ball on the move at about the free-throw line (and probably low, judging by the difficult angle between extended defenders with which Kepkay would have had to cope) which seems likely to have ended in a fumbling sequence that easily could have kept the Utes from even getting a shot up.

Ask me, I say he made the right call taking the shot.

Fascinating how quickly the Utes are reverting to their unfortunate form of recent years, and how quickly coach Jim Boylen must be starting to understand how former coach Ray Giacoletti felt during all those close losses last season.

Wasn't it just yesterday that the Utes were encouragingly going toe-to-toe with impressive opponents from the Pac-10 Conference, and supposedly learning all the lessons they would need to survive their Mountain West Conference schedule?

Yeah, well ...

The Utes just lost their third straight down-to-the-wire league game, which is not all that different from the seven games the Utes lost by three points or less in the first half of last season. (Watching a red-faced Boylen fume in the locker room afterward reminded me of Giacoletti coming unglued after the Utes couldn't get a call and lost in double-overtime at Rhode Island last season.) In fact, of their seven losses so far, the Utes have fallen in overtime twice, by three points or less two other times, and once by only six.

And just as Giacoletti had the burden of playing under the weight of NCAA sanctions and poor recruiting at the end of the previous coaching administration, the current Utes are dealing with having lost three underclassmen from last season -- forward Daniel Deane transferred and forward Stephen Weigh quit to return home, while little-used point guard Curtis Eatmon was released from his scholarship -- an injury to forward Kim Tillie, and the idea that the previous administration imported substandard talent.

All of which seems to be splintering popular opinion, just as last season did.

Many fans are upset that a coach who was heralded as the answer to their problems -- remember, Giacoletti was the "breath of fresh air" after the cantankerous Majerus -- has been unable to transform the program as quickly as they want. Others are counseling patience, correctly noting that Boylen has improved the overall quality of the team, and that any coach needs time to build his system and recruit players best suited for it.

Part of the disconnect is the nature of coaching changes.

New coaches like Boylen often have to promise big things (and permit the insinuation that they can be achieved quickly) in order to excite and inspire the disconsolate fans whom the university needs to court back to the program. Yet the reality is that most new coaches need far more time than they would ever admit in public to build their program to meet their vision. There's no winning for them, unless they somehow enjoy a harmonic convergence the way ... well, the way Giacoletti did with Andrew Bogut and Marc Jackson in his first season. But that's the exception that proves the rule. Look at how most of the five new coaches in the Mountain West are struggling this season, for example; only New Mexico's Steve Alford could be considered a bottom-line success so far, and even he has only barely split his league games.

So which way will the Utes go from here?

That will be interesting to watch.

By this time last season, the Utes were 5-12 and had long since begun their historic slide, with an overtime loss at New Mexico finishing a six-game losing streak. Not just a little of that, though, was the product of so many devastatingly close losses early that sapped their confidence and led to widespread resignation during the second half of the season.

Yet if there is one thing the Utes have not done so far this season, it's give up. They're still fighting, as Boylen said, they're still battling. They have yet to get blown out, the way they did at least twice in the first half of last season, and seem to possess a stronger constitution and willingness to defend hard to stay in games under Boylen.

You just wonder how long they can keep it up, if the results don't start to turn around sometime soon.

It has to be in their heads now, doesn't it? All the missed free throws -- center Luke Nevill airballed one, for crying out loud -- all of the botched plays, all of the down-to-the-wire losses?

The Utes can't keep absorbing punishment like this and coming back for more.

Can they?

Coach Jim Boylen believes they can, but he'd rather they just go ahead and win a game, instead. The Utes dropped their third straight agonizing game, losing 77-67 in overtime at New Mexico tonight -- they haven't beaten the Lobos at The Pit since 2002 -- and once again left open the debate about whether they should be encouraged that they managed to make it so close (they really were on the verge of getting run over, near the end of an abysmal first half) or disgusted that they let another one get away.

Guess which route Boylen chose.

"We had our chances to win another game, and we didn't do it," he said. "It's on me."

Well, yes. But it's also on the players who made only 9 of 16 free throws -- they're shooting 54.5 percent in their last three games, after being above 81 percent in their previous 10 -- and wilted in overtime. The Utes scored only three points in the final 3:20, while guards Tyler Kepkay and Luka Drca both missed free throws (Drca, again, on the front end of a one-and-one) that could have kept the Utes in it, and Lawrence Borha fouled a three-point shooter that allowed the Lobos to break from the final tie of the game.

Asked what he felt was the difference in the overtime, during which Nevill fouled out and the Lobos shot and made seven free throws in the final 1:25 to clinch it, Boylen shook his head.

"Don't make me go there," he said tersely. "Don't make me go there. I don't want to talk about that, uh ... The difference in the overtime was, they scored 17 points, we scored seven. They made their free throws, we didn't. Gotta give them credit."

It appeared for one brief moment as if the Utes had finally made the play that was going to get them out of their slump, when Kepkay drove for a game-tying lay-up and a foul with 3:52 left. The look in his eyes suggested that he had suddenly realized, "Hey, we can do this!" ... and then he promptly missed his free throw and the spiral resumed.

He's 87 percent shooter, by the way.

So let the debate rage on, knowing that the Utes trailed by 12 points in the first half, yet fought back in a hostile arena to take a nine-point lead in the second. They gave up 11 unanswered points to blow that lead, yet held off the Lobos in the final minute. They employed sound strategy (if not a high-percentage shot, or a well-executed screen-and-roll) at the end of regulation by letting the clock run down in a tie game before Kepkay tried a long three-pointer, but nearly blew it right there when New Mexico's Jamal Smith was able to grab the rebound and sprint downcourt unimpeded for a final shot that, fortunately for the Utes, missed at the horn.

Comme ci, comme ca.

"We feel like we play good enough to win these games and we always have opportunities to win these games, it seems like," forward Shaun Green said. "Hopefully, it ends here and we start making plays down the stretch of games and start winning a few of these."

Among other tidbits worth noting:

-- The Utes endured their worst first half of the season, scoring just 21 points on 40 percent shooting (they were only 4-for-15, at one point) and committing 10 turnovers against three assists. Amazingly, they committed only six turnovers the rest of the way, though Boylen said they did not change anything from the first half to the second. "Our goal was to hang in there, let the game settle down, handle our emotions and hang in there," he said. "And I thought we did that."

-- The Utes looked so much better in the second half when Drca was primarily running the offense, with Kepkay and Johnnie Bryant on the wings and Green in the lineup with Nevill. But for the third straight game, Drca missed the front end of a crucial one-and-one free-throw opportunity during crunch time, this time (and again) in overtime. No wonder Boylen was so definitive about not wanting to insert him into the starting lineup.

-- Offensively, the Utes continue to go in fits and starts. They endured nearly seven minutes without a point early in the game, went on a 10-0 run in barely two minutes of the second half to build an eight-point lead (they shot 58 percent in the second half), then went another 6 1/2 minutes without a basket late in the game. In overtime, they scored only three points in the final 3:20.

-- Mr. Brown? Mr. Carlon Brown? ... Paging, Mr. Carlon Brown. Please pick up a white courtesy phone, so we might know you're in the game. The freshman went scoreless for the fourth time in seven games, and did not start the second half for the second straight game. (He did start the overtime, but played only the first 31 seconds). Brown has scored only 10 points combined in those last seven games, after averaging 5.2 per game before that.

-- Generally, I don't buy the idea of the Utes getting screwed by the officials (note my earlier post on the subject). But they did get jammed with some bad calls that really affected the game. Referees called back-to-back questionable charging fouls on Nevill and Drca late in the game (the one on Nevill was especially bad, from my seat), keeping the Utes from building on a nine-point lead. Nevill later fouled out after New Mexico's Daniel Faris pump-faked him into the air in the opening seconds of overtime.

-- Forward Kim Tillie did not play, because of soreness in the leg in which he suffered a stress fracture earlier this season. After missing five games with the injury, Tillie played 10 minutes against BYU last weekend, but felt he needed more recovery before playing again. That certainly did not help the Utes, who lost the rebounding battle and gave up 12 offensive rebounds while gathering just six.

Just learned that forward Kim Tillie will not play against the New Mexico Lobos here in a bit, on account of soreness in the leg in which he suffered a stress fracture recently.

That doesn't bode well for the Utes inside, where they will be back to having little aside from center Luke Nevill to patrol the paint. It's not wholly unexpected, though; coach Jim Boylen said Monday that he wasn't sure whether Tillie would be able to play.

At least, Tillie will have had six days of uninterrupted rest before the Utes take on TCU in the Huntsman Center in their next game Saturday.

Seems pretty clear that coach Jim Boylen feels as if his team is getting jobbed at the free-throw line.

When asked the other day about how few free-throws his team shoots, he had virtually the same reaction that he did after the Utes lost to Brigham Young last weekend -- when he did not say anything for a several seconds, then took a swig of water and asked for another question.

"You're opening up a whole can of worms for me," he said Monday.

That's code for not wanting to get in trouble for complaining about the officiating.

But he did provide part of an answer, this time, saying that "it's a combination of us not having the speed and quickness in the paint to have people separate from the defense, but also on the defensive end, our physicality is getting [other teams] to the penalty earlier."

"I'll let you figure out the rest," he added.

While Boylen might have a beef with how referees are calling fouls when the Utes are on defense, it seems somewhat disingenuous to be annoyed at the refs when the players seldom provide any reason to make a call. Obviously, Boylen himself essentially acknowledged that the Utes are mostly a jump-shooting team that seldom attacks the basket -- and you're not going to get many calls when your 7-foot-1 center, for example, fades away from the hoop almost every time he shoots it.

So it will be interesting to see what the Utes manage tonight against the Lobos.

The Utes have shot more than 11 free throws only once in the last five games, and that came against the vastly undersized Air Force Falcons. In fact, the Utes generally have shot the most free throws against the teams that they are expected to dominate -- USC Upstate, High Point, Air Force, Missouri State, Idaho State -- and far fewer against teams that are closer to their level.

Predictably, the Utes also shoot fewer free throws on the road. They have averaged only 6.6 free-throw attempts in their five games away from the Huntsman Center since the NIT Season Tip-Off tournament in Seattle in November.

Rick Majerus always said he felt comfortable coaching at a Catholic school.

Suppose he still feels the same way?

Majerus is under fire from the Archbishop of St. Louis, who believes the former Utah coach should be disciplined and maybe even fired from his job as the coach at St. Louis University for proclaiming his support of abortion rights and stem-cell research while making a campaign appearance in support of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

"It's not possible to be a Catholic and hold those positions," Archbishop Raymond Burke said. "When you take a position in a Catholic university, you don't have to embrace everything the Catholic church teaches. But you can't make statements which call into question the identity and mission of the Catholic church."

A university spokesman said Majerus was expressing his own personal views when he made his controversial comments, and the Missouri Supreme Court has affirmed that while the university is aligned with the Catholic Church, it is not controlled by it -- clearing the way for the city to contribute millions to the financing of a new downtown arena.

Burke, by the way, is the same guy who declared he would deny Sen. John Kerry communion because he supports abortion rights, and tried unsuccessfully to keep hot singer Sheryl Crow from performing at a fund-raiser for a medical center because she supports embryonic stem-cell research.

The good news for the Utes is that forward Kim Tillie did not suffer a setback while playing for the first time in five games against Brigham Young last weekend.

The bad news is, he's still questionable to play the New Mexico Lobos tonight.

Coach Jim Boylen said the 6-foot-9 sophomore had experienced some soreness in the leg that's recovering from a stress fracture, after playing 10 productive minutes off the bench against the Cougars. And if that soreness persists, the Utes won't use him against the Lobos -- especially knowing that Tillie will have three more days of rest before the next game.

If Tillie can play, Boylen expects to use him in short bursts of three to four minutes apiece. But that could be enough to help. Against the Cougars, Tillie contributed four points, five rebounds and a blocked shot while providing a strong inside presence.

"I knew we missed him," Boylen said. "Then you watch him play in that game and you're like, 'Whoa ...'"

Coach Jim Boylen made a specific point of saying he has not considered changing his lineup when Utes play at New Mexico tonight -- even though guard Luka Drca arguably has been playing better than starter Tyler Kepkay, and fellow guard Johnnie Bryant started the second half of the loss to Brigham Young last weekend.

"I don't believe in mixing up the lineup a whole bunch," he said. "We'll start the same way, and see how it goes."

Regardless of which players start or get the majority of minutes, the Utes could pretty clearly use some improved guard play. The Utes rank last or next-to-last in the league by averaging just 4.3 steals, 9.3 assists and 13 turnovers (for a poor assist-to-turnover ratio) during league games, and they're going up against one of the better backcourts in the Mountain West Conference.

Everybody talks about J.R. Giddens and all of the three-pointers the Lobos shoot, but the Lobos also are especially good at sharing the ball. They lead the league by handing out 17.3 assists per game -- a statistic we know Boylen covets, judging by the number of times he has checked the stat sheet after a game to see how many baskets his Utes assisted on -- and rank in the top two in turnover margin and assist-to-turnover ratio.

"They get a lot of their threes in transition," Boylen said, "because they have multiple ball-handlers. ... That's very difficult."

For their part, the Lobos are focused on stopping center Luke Nevill, which could put even more pressure on the Utah guards to make plays. And that might not be a good thing, if recent history is an accurate guide.

Since coach Jim Boylen basically gave us all permission to second-guess him -- "that's why we're all here," he said, only half-jokingly, at his weekly press conference today -- we might as well take him up on it, right?

Right.

So I'll go ahead and say that I still don't quite understand why he would choose to play for one last shot against Brigham Young over the weekend, trailing by one on his home floor.

Not that I'm necessarily opposed to the strategy in every case (sometimes, it's a smart call), but the Utes are so much better on defense right now -- and have been, for several games -- that I can't figure why he wouldn't try to get a basket and the lead as easily and quickly as he could, then rely on that defense against a Cougar team that, like his own, was shooting only about 33 percent in the game.

"In hindsight, we probably should have gone right away," he acknowledged, for probably the millionth time.

Yet while explaining himself (again) at his press conference, Boylen seemed about as tense as we've seen him -- almost defiant, in a way, as if he was feeling an inordinate amount of criticism for his decision. Which seemed odd. While fans and the media have certainly questioned his logic, I don't think anyone has really hammered him for it, especially since the strategy might have worked just fine had point guard Tyler Kepkay made his final shot.

At any rate, Boylen again explained that was worried about his Utes taking a frantic shot if they ran a play too quickly, and that the play he called was something the team had worked on in practice.

"We didn't get it executed and we went too late," he said. "That's my fault. ... And I'll take that. I have to make decisions that I think is best for my team, my group of guys, where we're at at the time. If I had to make that decision over again? It's easy to say now, 'Yeah, I'd do something different.'"

Which makes me wonder how Boylen will approach another similar situation ... say, at New Mexico on Tuesday night? After all, the Utes and Lobos twice went into overtime last season, and both games -- a win at home, a loss on the road -- were decided by a total of six points. It's not a stretch to imagine he might get a chance to try again, very soon.

While the last two games have suggested the Utes are just one or two plays down the stretch away from being unbeaten in Mountain West Conference play, point guard Tyler Kepkay and coach Jim Boylen agreed that the offense -- as a whole -- is not good enough.

"We're not there yet," Boylen said at his weekly press conference today. "We're not there yet."

In other words, the Utes are not thrilled with the way they have played offensively in league games, even though they did enough to create chances to win late against San Diego State and Brigham Young. Kepkay noted that the Utes are scoring only 55 points per game in league play.

"If you had asked us that at the beginning of the year, we'd think we'd be up around 75," he said. "I think once we get our offense going, we're going to be very good."

Both men acknowledged that the Utes have spent so much time for most of the season focusing on defense during practices -- once-abysmal defenders, the Utes are leading the league by allowing just 35.5 percent shooting and 51.7 points in conference games -- that the offense has yet to come around.

And both said the fact that the Utes haven't yet mastered Boylen's complex system probably played a role in their losses to the Aztecs and Cougars.

"Absolutely," Boylen said.

Not that Boylen is apologizing for it, though, considering he believes (rightly) that the Utes were so bad on defense last season that they needed to rebuild that part of the team first.

"I just want it understood that my team is getting better, and we are growing as a group," he said. "Has it translated to wins we could have had? No. I'm disappointed in that. But we are getting better."

Having led the Mountain West Conference in free-throw shooting for much of the season, the Utes have fallen from their perch after their last two abysmal efforts from the line.

The Utes dropped into second place in the league, shooting 74.2 percent compared to 74.3 percent for UNLV. Had they made just one more of their free throws during their 9-for-17 stretch in the last two games, they would still be on top -- never mind maybe beaten either San Diego State or Brigham Young.

Perhaps an even more telling sign, the Utes remain by far the team that shoots the fewest free throws in the league.

The Utes have shot only 213 in 16 games -- that's barely 13 per game -- while the next closest team is Colorado State, which has shot 270 free throws in 17 games.

Think about that.

The Utes could go to the line 40 times in their next game, and still not catch up -- and they're a team with a 7-foot-1 center who you'd think should be making a pretty good living at the line. Just goes to show how little the Utes attack the basket, generally speaking, though they remain the league's top shooting team at 49.5 percent from the field.

Center Luke Nevill leads the league with 27 blocked shots, on the bright side, which is only six fewer than he had all of last season. The Utes also are allowing opponents to shoot just 35.5 percent and score 51.7 points in league play -- tops in the league -- although they rank only in the middle of the pack by shooting 42.6 percent in league games.

Things aren't looking so promising at the moment for the Utes, who are sliding toward the bottom of the Mountain West Conference standings after their home loss to Brigham Young.

But at least, they're not Wyoming.

Looks like we're probably safe writing off the Cowboys, considering they have been downright awful in four league losses -- including the latest, an 83-56 disaster at San Diego State in which they gave up the first 19 points of the game and scored just 13 in the first half.

The Aztecs, conversely, are in control of the league title race, with a 4-0 record that represents their best start since 1984-85. They play at BYU on Wednesday.

"When you can win like this, especially on your home court, it's good for your body and good for team morale," forward Lorrenzo Wade said. "It also sends a message to the conference that we're a team capable of winning big."

And, hey, how about them Horned Frogs?

Henry Salter and the gang snapped a 12-game road losing streak by winning 70-58 at Colorado State and will bring a surprising 3-1 league record to the Huntsman Center next weekend. The Rams are headed in the same direction as the Cowboys, though, -- albeit with what appears to be much better effort.

The Rams have lost four in a row since center Stuart Creason was sidelined with a foot injury, and have had to give major minutes to several walk-ons, including one who made the team via open tryouts on campus.

Meanwhile, the Utes won't have a pushover in their next game, considering New Mexico seems to have recovered from its back-to-back losses last week. The Lobos buried Air Force 59-44 despite some morose opening minutes, and have beaten the Utes six straight times since 2002 away from the Huntsman Center. The teams meet at The Pit in Albuquerque on Tuesday night.

The Falcons lost their shooting touch against the Lobos, hitting just 27.5 percent after shooting over 50 in back-to-back wins last week. It was their worst shooting performance since a loss to Brigham Young nearly five years ago.

"It was just one of those nights," guard Tim Anderson said.

Was that a replay?

The last real possession the Utes had in their 55-52 loss to Brigham Young at the Huntsman Center today looked a lot like the last one they had in regulation of their overtime loss at San Diego State last week. Too much scrambling, too little executing -- suggesting the Utes still aren't nearly as comfortable in the crucible of crunch time as they might have liked to believe.

"We just didn't get what we wanted," point guard Tyler Kepkay said.

Sound familiar?

The Utes couldn't beat the shot clock on their last good possession against the Aztecs, either, losing the ball and sweating out the final 14 seconds before heading to overtime. In that case, the Utes survived -- at least temporarily -- their last-minute freeze-up. But against the Cougars, they were not so lucky. BYU's Lee Cummard rebounded the airballed baseline floater that Kepkay desperately threw up with about five seconds left, then hit two free throws that sealed the game.

Coach Jim Boylen basically took the blame on this one, though, saying that he should have told his players during a timeout to start trying to run their final play -- something with a drive and dish, though Boylen was not any more specific -- sooner. After all, he gives them precise instructions about not only which play to run but how much time should be left when they start to run it.

"We talked about all of that in the huddle, what we wanted to do," he said. "We didn't execute it. In hindsight, you could say we should have gone earlier, probably should have. But I'm not going to beat myself up over a decision that I thought was the best for my team."

Oh, but he will.

Coaches are notorious for taking losses hard -- that's what they do -- and Boylen is no exception. During his post-game press conference, he looked most of the time as if he just wanted to hit something. He's bound to get little sleep tonight as he replays his final decision over and over.

"I probably would have gone earlier," he said. "I wanted to just get us settled, get us into our thing, get a good shot. I thought we had one crack at it, and then we were going to have to foul. I think we waited too long, we wanted to drive the ball -- high stack, drive the ball, something we've worked on. And it didn't work."

If nothing else, it was refreshing that Boylen immediately took the blame.

He could have put it on the players -- which some justification, since it's the players who have to execute the actual plays that Boylen designs and calls. But as much as the Utes might be making you wonder whether they have the intelligence and fortitude to win close games against good opponents, it was far better for Boylen to do what he did.

He just stepped up, accepted responsibility right off the bat, and moved on. That, by itself, is all anybody can ask when what you thought was a good plan goes wrong.

Among other tidbits worth mentioning:

-- Center Luke Nevill didn't have a monster game offensively, but did score 11 points and grab nine rebounds while forcing BYU's Trent Plaisted into another embarrassing performance. If Plaisted seemed to have left Nevill behind during the offseason, he has fallen apart much more quickly over the past couple of weeks. Plaisted was just 2-for-11 from the field, for six points and four rebounds with three turnovers. That's a good job, by Nevill, even if Plaisted wasn't at his best coming into the game.

-- Guard Johnnie Bryant started the second half in place of Carlon Brown, after Brown contributed frighteningly little in the first half. Brown had just one rebound and nothing else in nine minutes, while Bryant was on his way to an eight-point night, though his streak of strong shooting performances was unceremoniously snapped with a rough 3-for-10 effort.

-- The Utes twice went scoreless for 5 1/2 minutes in the first half, after going nearly six while San Diego State scored 14 unanswered points to start the second half last week. They also allowed a dozen offensive rebounds while grabbing only six, a crucial element in allowing the Cougars to stay in the game while shooting only 33 percent.

-- Forward Kim Tillie played for the first time since missing five games with a stress fracture in his leg. Though he picked up two fouls within his first two minutes, he later returned to the game and scored a crucial putback of Nevill's miss with about 26 seconds left in the first half that inspired a huge hug from Boylen and allowed the Utes to cut the lead to one. Tillie finished with four points and five rebounds in 10 minutes.

-- Fans in the student section assembled a giant flag pole that had flying from it the flags of all five nations represented by the Utes -- the United States, Canada, France, Serbia and Australia. Where you dig up a Serbian flag around here, I'm not sure, but that was pretty impressive.

-- Assistant coach Jeff Smith attended the Jazz game against the Los Angeles Clippers last night, and was able to spend about a half-hour visiting with center Chris Kaman of the Clips -- whom Smith coached while an assistant at Central Michigan.

Just a quick pre-game note ... forward Kim Tillie said he thinks he might get a shot against the Cougars -- he is in uniform, and went through warm-ups -- though he said his leg still hurts a bit and he still hasn't practiced much. That would be a huge bonus for the Utes, who haven't had Tillie available the past five games while he recovers from a stress fracture in his leg.

Two incoming recruits are attending the game, as well.

Guard Chris Hines is in from Klein Forest High School in Houston -- he had never seen snow before, he said -- while Brighton's Jace Tavita was sitting with him in the floor seats directly across from the Cougar bench. Also ran into former guard Tim Drisdom, who just returned home from playing professionally in Finland and has a newborn baby boy with his girlfriend. Congratulations!

Looks like the Cougars are bracing for the usual harassing treatment when they meet the Utes at the Huntsman Center today, with a writer from the Daily Herald in Provo speculating on which of the Cougs will incite the most taunts.

The writer's best guess?

Center Chris Miles, who infamously kicked Utah's Andrew Bogut in the back after Bogut fell on him following a thunderous dunk three years ago. Strangely, the article is a little light on first names -- it lacks a byline, too, making me wonder whether the first part of it is missing -- but it's pretty amusing.

Even BYU coach Dave Rose acknowledges he sometimes admires the hecklers and their signs.

"They actually are pretty creative," he said. "I can't remember any of them, but there are times when ... I try not to look at anything ... but every once in a while you see one and think, my goodness, that college student has a career in creativity."

At last!

Thanks to a helpful reader, we finally have video of San Diego State's Lorrenzo Wade throwing down that ridiculously vicious jam over center Luke Nevill during the game the other night. Evidently, it was No. 7 on ESPN's Plays of the Day.

All I can say is ... damn.

Of course, as soon as I saw it, I wondered how it stacked up against the dunk that Golden State's Baron Davis threw down over the Jazz's Andrei Kirilenko in the NBA playoffs. Of course, I still can't decide. Which one would you rather have running on a loop?

Barely 1,000 tickets remain for the annual rivalry meeting with Brigham Young at the Huntsman Center on Saturday.

The Utes are encouraging fans to get their tickets early -- the Rice-Eccles Stadium ticket office is open until 6 p.m. today, or you can order by phone at 801-581-UTIX -- to be part of what is expected to be the first crowd exceeding 14,000 since the Utes played San Diego State nearly three years ago.

The last sellout the Utes enjoyed came against the Cougars on Feb. 26, 2005 -- when 15,014 fans attended the game.

Well, I managed to incite a few takers with the theoretical argument that the Utes might not have done anything much different yet -- strictly in the black and white of wins and losses -- under new coach Jim Boylen than they could have done with a fresh start and added experience and former coach Ray Giacoletti still at the helm.

But not many agreed.

Mostly, they focused on the things I tried to leave out of the equation -- as I said, it was a theoretical argument -- such as the vast defensive improvement, the increased feeling of confidence and togetherness the players seem to feel, and the ability to avoid the blowout losses that so painfully marked the Giacoletti era.

All of those things exist now where they hadn't before, and that is a tremendous credit to Boylen.

While I still think it's a defensible argument that the Utes under Giacoletti could have had a comparable record to the current Utes under Boylen at the moment -- at best, they would be 9-6, since I doubt they would have won at Cal -- it's undeniable that the current Utes have so much more going for them now that bodes well for the rest of the season and beyond. This is not a team that's going to get blown out, give up or go swirling down the drain -- which is not something I would have felt confident about saying without Boylen here.

And that is why the Utes are better off with Boylen, and the reason that so many fans seem so encouraged that he's the one leading the team.

Just in case you missed it -- and I'm sorry I forgot to post it any earlier -- Sports Illustrated has an expansive article this week on former coach Rick Majerus
... and it lays bare many of the outrageous tales about his behavior while coaching the Utes.

"One year he had this lower-back injury, and he would have the trainer massage it with ultrasound," one former player recalled. "But instead of just lowering his pants a little bit, Majerus would pull his pants down to his ankles and sit in a chair and coach us. Sometimes he'd be like, 'Guys, bring it in, take a knee.' We'd come in, and we're just like, No way this is happening."

In other words, absolutely classic.

The article is like a greatest hits of Majerus stories -- yes, the "Six Inches" story is in there, retold by Michael Doleac -- with many of the great former Utes of his era joining the chorus. Yet writer S.L. Price casts all of Majerus' behavioral oddities -- having secretaries walk on his back, smacking players in the testicles -- as the curious and mystifying dark side to a man who otherwise possesses unusual compassion and sincerity.

"He can be in your face for 3 1/2 hours during practice, and when we are walking toward the locker room, he wants to be your best friend," Hanno Mottola recalled. "And he is. He's not fake. He's the most honest coach I've encountered."

Truly, it is a spectacularly engaging portrait -- easily, the greatest thing ever written about Majerus -- and well worth a read.

So, it sounds like Stephen Weigh's family wanted him back home, and he wanted to be there with them.

Anything wrong with that?

Not to me, and not to coach Jim Boylen.

Boylen hit all the right chords in bidding Weigh farewell after the Utes watched film on Thursday night, saying he wishes Weigh would have stayed but understanding why he left. And he's right in assessing that the departure won't mean much for the Utes on the floor this season, considering Weigh had barely played the past two months while dealing with injuries.

"It hasn't been a real good year for him, with injuries," Boylen said, "and I think his heart was telling him to go home."

Meanwhile, Weigh told me that he informed Boylen of his decision last Sunday in an effort to allow the coach as much time as possible to make recruiting and scholarship decisions, but that he has had "definitely no contract negotiations, as of yet," with teams in the National Basketball League in Australia. (Hard to imagine he would, given that he's injured.)

But having grown up admiring Aussie pro idols such as Andrew Gaze and Shane Heal made Weigh dream of one day following in their footsteps -- not necessarily playing an entire four-year collegiate career. In fact, he said he had never even considered attending an American university, until he started attracting significant interest during his second year playing at the Australian Institute for Sport.

Still, he said "it's been a great experience" playing for the Utes, and "I've met some great people, friends for life."

Returning home also gives Weigh a chance to remain more prominently "in front of the eyes of the Australian national team selectors" so he can hopefully make an impression on them and perhaps one day fulfill his dream of playing for Australia internationally.

Center Luke Nevill, meanwhile, assured the Utes that he's not going anywhere -- "for me, it's the best decision to stay here," he said -- but acknowledged that losing a close friend and countryman won't be easy. "I'm going to make it as hard as possible for him to leave," he joked.

If anybody started a pool to wager on the next time Stephen Weigh would make a basket for the Utes, return the money.

He won't ever score again.

The injured 6-foot-6 sophomore abruptly quit the team today, announcing in a statement issued by the university that he wants to return home to his native Australia and pursue a professional career -- thus cementing his career-ending 0-for-16 shooting slump into the history books.

"This was a tough decision," he said, "but I believe it will be the best thing for me and my family."

Weigh has played 11 games for the Utes this season, but was injured in two of them -- mostly recently, suffering a sprained knee in a victory over Dixie State last week. He has not played since then, and did not join the Utes during their trip to San Diego State to play the Aztecs last night. He was expected to miss at least another three weeks.

Weigh scored 42 points in the first three games of the season as a starter, but had scored only six points since then. He lost his job to freshman Carlon Brown while he was recovering from his rib injury, and never looked comfortable upon returning to the lineup, as his hideous shooting slump suggested.

Now, the Utes know for certain they will be shorthanded in the frontcourt for the rest of the season, though they're hoping to see injured forward Kim Tillie return from a stress fracture in his leg against Brigham Young on Saturday.

Don't get me wrong, I really like new coach Jim Boylen, and believe he ultimately will do a fine job of leading the Utes back to prominence. But after last night, I had to wonder:

Are the Utes really any better now -- strictly in black and white of the standings -- than they would have been without firing former coach Ray Giacoletti?

I know, I know.

It sounds ridiculous, when you say it out loud. The Utes are 10-5, after all, after being just 5-10 at this point last season -- and they are clearly much better on defense.

But they're also playing with guys who were clueless freshmen and sophomores the past two seasons, and who arguably would have improved enough simply by virtue of all the minutes they played in that span (and the addition of players whom Giacoletti recruited) to do under Giacoletti almost exactly what they have done so far this season under Boylen.

Seriously, I can think of only one game that the Utes have won this season that I doubt they would have won with a fresh start to a new season and Giacoletti still running the show, and that was on the road at Cal. That was one time they showed the toughness and composure about which Boylen constantly preaches to achieve something that otherwise would not have been expected.

The rest?

For all of the emphasis on toughness and "grit," it hasn't resulted in much difference, on the bottom line. The Utes lost at home to Santa Clara and on the road at Washington, Oregon, Gonzaga and San Diego State; the old Utes certainly could have done that, even if you want to argue that the margins would have been wider. But to my point, what difference does that make?

Losing is losing.

And aside from the Cal game, the Utes have done nothing spectacular in their victories. USC Upstate? High Point? UC Irvine? Idaho State? Dixie State? I don't doubt that the Utes under Giacoletti could have won all of those games -- and even Missouri State (though I'll grant that was a better win than those others). And remember, the Utes beat Weber State and Air Force (at home) last year, too -- so it's not as if Boylen conjured some special magic to deliver any great accomplishment with those victories.

Again, I'm hardly trying to blast Boylen.

He's a good coach, and one whose energy and passion seems likely to turn the Utes into a power again. But maybe the Utes, to this point, are not all that different -- strictly in the standings -- than they would have been, anyway. Thoughts?

So, it probably was bad enough, watching the Utes clank all those free throws and stagger through the opening moments of the second half and overtime in their 64-56 loss at San Diego State last night.

Until you realize, it wasn't the first time.

While the Utes blew a 10-point halftime lead by allowing 14 unanswered points against the Aztecs to start the second half last night, they did almost the same thing the last time they were here, blowing an 11-point lead in the final 15 minutes of a 63-53 loss last season. And San Diego State's Lorrenzo Wade was the culprit both times. Wade scored 12 points, seven rebounds, five assists and a three-point play to finish a game-breaking run a year ago, and scorched the Utes for 20 points, eight boards and one vicious dunk over center Luke Nevill last night.

The monster jam -- we're still looking for video or photos, so we can compare Wade with Golden State's Baron Davis slamming over the Jazz's Andrei Kirilenko in last season's NBA playoffs -- gave the Aztecs a 50-41 lead with six minutes left, which was just enough for them to get them to overtime.

"It energized the crowd," Aztecs coach Steve Fisher said. "He did the same thing last year. We were down 11 with 15 minutes to play. We fought back and tied it at 42-42. He did the exact same thing. He had a magnificent dunk over one of their guys for an 'and one.' It energized everyone and we went on to win the game."

What's even worse?

Wade is still only a junior.

It's late, so this is going to be quick.

Yes, the Utes lost the game at the free-throw line, in their 64-56 failure at San Diego State on Thursday night. Hitting just 4 of 9 foul shots -- including two crucial front ends of one-and-one opportunities in crunch time -- was inexcusable, especially for a team that led the league in free-throw shooting and made 81 percent in its previous 10 games.

But the Utes had so many more chances than that.

Start with the end of regulation.

Even after Shaun Green missed his front-end foul shot that would have tied the game with 2:13 left, the Utes tied it up on his lay-up and were running down the shot clock for one final attempt. But the Utes seemed confused and flustered by the Aztec defense, and could not manage to even get off a potential game-winning shot before the shot clock expired with about 14 seconds left.

Equally inexcusable.

And while coach Jim Boylen is correct in noting that the Utes held the Aztecs to 40 percent shooting on their home floor, it's also true that the Aztecs shot 52 percent in the second half to climb back into the game. The Utes never truly recovered from allowing 14 unanswered points to start the second half.

Yes, they never game up and admirably fought back from a nine-point deficit with six minutes remaining to force overtime, but they never really reclaimed the momentum, and even center Luke Nevill conceded the Utes never should have been in that position in the first place.

"We let them get back in the game," he said, "and that cost us."

Speaking of opportunities lost, I thought a big one came in the first half, when Green impressively blocked a three-point attempt out on the wing to trigger a fast-break with the Utes ahead 26-15 and threatening to really blow the Aztecs away.

But Green bricked the lay-up against the rim at the other end, allowing the Aztecs to come back, bury a jumper and stay in the game. That was a big swing that kept the Utes from perhaps really demoralizing the Aztecs.

That was the way this game went, though -- for every good thing the Utes did, they managed a counterbalancing bad thing. Which might be the way we should expect this season to progress, now that the Utes wasted a prime opportunity to jump to the top of the Mountain West Conference standings.

Among other tidbits worth mentioning:

-- Guard Luka Drca played a season-high 35 points, some of them at power forward, and again filled up the stat sheet. He made only 3 of 7 shots, but scored nine points, grabbed seven rebounds, handed out five assists and made two steals against only two turnovers. If only had had made the front end of that one-and-one in overtime ...

-- Guard Johnnie Bryant continued his hot shooting streak, hitting 6 of 9 shots and scoring 12 points. The senior is averaging 15.8 points in his last six games, and shooting 57.3 percent in that span -- though he failed to make a three-pointer for the first time in eight games.

-- In a sign of tension among the Utes amid the tense road environment, Nevill and guard Tyler Kepkay twice resorted to bickering on the court about where one had thrown a pass to the other. Nevill complained about one pass that Kepkay had thrown at Nevill's knees, and Kepkay griped to Nevill about a pass that Nevill threw over his head.

-- Forward Kim Tillie dressed and participated in pre-game warm-ups, but did not play. Recovering from a stress fracture in his leg, the sophomore returned to practice only two days ago, and remains doubtful to play against Brigham Young on Saturday.

We've already noted that the Utes uncharacteristically chartered a plane for their trip to play the San Diego State Aztecs tonight.

But even with the chartered flight, the Utes are not expecting to return to the Huntsman Center until maybe 2:30 in the morning -- which isn't going to be easy on the guys with 7:30 classes.

Which is why senior Chris Grant and freshman walk-on Tre Smith are planning to sleep in the locker room when they return. They're the only two players with such early classes -- nobody else has a class earlier than 9:30 -- and both live a fair distance from campus.

Enjoy those good solid four hours, fellas!

Don't know how many times I've covered basketball games here at Cox Arena, but however many it has been, even I had never noticed the cardboard cutout of a man that looks out over the arena from a perch far above the floor in a control-room crow's nest.

Coach Jim Boylen, on the other hand, he noticed right away.

Evidently, Boylen scarcely needed any time at all to notice the "man" during the pre-game shootaround this afternoon, and immediately wanted to know just who was watching the Utes make their final preparations to meet the Aztecs tonight.

Of course, the coach didn't have anything to worry about.

The Aztecs leave the cutout in his spot to potentially spook anybody who would happen to be lurking around the arena when it's closed. Sounds silly, sure, but from the floor -- or even the top row of seats -- the cutout indeed looks as if it's a real, live person keep an eye on things. He wears a green shirt, if you ever have the chance to look for him.

The last time the Utes played at San Diego State, freshman Carlon Brown was still a senior at Martin Luther King High School in nearby Riverside -- and watched as the Utes shot a miserable 37 percent, committed 21 turnovers and lost 63-53 at Cox Arena.

Yet even while watching that carnage in person -- Brown immediately recalled the 5 1/2-minute scoring drought the Utes endured, to blow an 11-point lead -- he never questioned his decision to join the Utes.

"Naw," he said. "I was seeing some of the stuff that you see from the sideline that you can't see in the game, like open lanes to drive, or 'I would have done that, if I was in the game.' ... I was seeing things that I could do to help us."

Obviously, Brown hopes he can execute some of those things when the Utes meet the Aztecs again tonight -- especially considering he hasn't exactly been lighting it up, lately. He has shot just 1-of-9 and scored only four points in the last four games combined, though he did help out more in other ways -- five assists, four rebounds, two steals -- against Dixie State last week than he had in his previous three games.

"If we can limit their dunks and limit their energy plays, we should be good," he said.

The Utes announced today that while they're expecting their "biggest crowd in three years" when they play rival Brigham Young at the Huntsman Center on Saturday, tickets are still available.

Fans can buy them at www.UtahTickets.com, over the phone at 801-581-UTIX or at the Rice-Eccles Stadium ticket office. The ticket office is open between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays, and will open at 10 a.m. before the game against the Cougars.

While we examined today how badly the Utes need to start winning on the road again if they're going to contend for a Mountain West Conference championship, the Aztecs are reveling in the return of senior guard Matt Thomas after missing most of two years with a back injury.

Having played only 30 minutes last season, Thomas has recovered enough to help freshman D.J. Gay handle point guard duties in place of injured senior Richie Williams. The Utes can't ignore him, either; Thomas played a starring role in the Aztecs' victory at New Mexico last weekend.

And speaking of the Lobos ...

Looks like they're being exposed a little bit by the league schedule, losing again last night when TCU's Ryan Wall -- a former Lobo -- hit his only basket of the game with 1.5 seconds left to give the Horned Frogs a 74-72 victory and surprising 2-1 league record.

So if you're scoring at home, that's back-to-back games in which the Lobos have wilted on defense and blown big leads. They led San Diego State by 14 points before falling at home last weekend, and they led the Horned Frogs by 18 (in the second half) before coughing it up last night.

Hellooooo, puckerville.

Which of course brings us to Brigham Young.

Once the nationally ranked pride of the league -- I even continued my own endorsement of them as the team to beat, on a taping of "Around the Mtn." on Tuesday -- the Cougars looked utterly lost again away from the Marriott Center, getting blown out 70-41 at UNLV. It was the fourth straight loss away from home for the Cougs, who allowed UNLV's Curtis Terry to erupt for 21 points against them at the Thomas & Mack Center.

And clearly, it wasn't just defense that was the problem. BYU's Jonathan Tavernari, for example, opened the game by hitting a three-pointer ... then missed his next nine shots in the city where he attended high school.

"I wasn't as mentally tough as I thought I was or had been before," he said, "and it really hurt us."

They're not professionals yet, so the Utes usually travel to their games like the rest of us -- on commercial airplanes.

But not this time.

With an usually short turnaround between their game at San Diego State late on Wednesday night -- once again, let's hear it for the 9 p.m. tip -- and their rivalry game against Brigham Young on Saturday afternoon, the Utes are traveling in style, chartering a plane so they can return home immediately after the game against the Aztecs.

In fact, the Utes have already left for San Diego, and expect to return in time for everybody to make it to both practice and class on Thursday.

"School's a priority for us," coach Jim Boylen said, "and I don't like missing class days for travel."

The Utes are planning to charter again when they play at TCU on Feb. 27 -- three days before a game at Wyoming. Those are the only two times this season that the Utes play road games requiring air travel on Wednesday nights before Saturday games.

So far, so good for forward Kim Tillie.

The 6-foot-9 sophomore has returned to the court for the first time since suffering a stress fracture in his right leg, and managed to work out with the Utes for about 20 minutes each of the last two days.

Coach Jim Boylen has called him "doubtful" to play against San Diego State on Wednesday night -- Tillie seems almost certain not to play, though Boylen has not ruled it out -- but the fact that Tillie did not have a setback on his first attempt to return has to be considered a good sign.

The Utes, by the way, are 2 1/2-point underdogs against the Aztecs.

Yes, they've played Oregon. They've played Washington. They've played Cal and Gonzaga.

But none of those teams are as athletic "overall," coach Jim Boylen said today, as the team his Utes will face next to start a tough three-games-in-seven-days stretch -- the San Diego State Aztecs.

The Aztecs are "the most athletic team we've played," Boylen said at his weekly press conference today. And yes, you might recognize much of this blog from the story we posted online a short while ago. But having been waylaid by a mysteriously fast-moving stomach virus that spent the night beating me to within an inch of my life, it's about all that I have the energy to provide just now.

My apologies.

At any rate, the 10-4 Utes face the Aztecs on the road at Cox Arena on Wednesday night -- the first game in the rough stretch that includes Brigham Young at home on Saturday and New Mexico on the road on Jan. 22.

The 12-4 Aztecs play at a "big-time pace," Boylen said. "Push the ball, score in transition, attack the basket with their athleticism. ... They have some really nice pieces." Coach Steve Fisher "has done a great job," Boylen added, "of getting them to kind of play in that system, but also have some freedom."

The Aztecs are leading the Mountain West Conference with a 2-0 league mark, having come back from a 14-point deficit to win at New Mexico last weekend. The Utes have beaten them 16 times in the last 19 meetings -- including three of the last four meetings in San Diego.

Forward Kim Tillie is doubtful to play against the Aztecs as he recovers from a stress fracture in his leg, Boylen said, and forward Stephen Weigh is out at least another three weeks with a sprained knee.

That means the Utes are going to have to juggle their lineups and perhaps play "small" against the Aztecs, with players like guards Carlon Brown and Luka Drca helping freshman Morgan Grim back up power forward Shaun Green.

"Foul trouble will dictate ... a lot," Boylen said. "But it's no secret those guys are going to have to play more minutes."

Boylen also said it's "kind of cool" for him to coach against Fisher, whom he recalls recruiting one of his high school teammates back when Fisher was an assistant coach in Michigan and Boylen was playing at East Grand Rapids High School.

While many opposing coaches have assessed the Utes under coach Jim Boylen by raving about their improved defense and maturity, San Diego State's Steve Fisher isn't one of them.

To him, the Utes never have been a pushover.

"They look more of the same to me," Fisher said on the Mountain West Conference's weekly teleconference today. "They still have Nevill in the middle and Bryant and Shaun Green and the rest of them. They've given us fits for years, no matter who's coaching them."

True enough.

The Utes are 16-3 against the Aztecs since they returned to the league schedule in 1998-99, and have won three of the last four meetings at Cox Arena -- where the teams will play on Wednesday night. (Thanks for that 9 p.m. MST tip, by the way.) The Aztecs are leading the league with a 2-0 conference record, having come back from a 14-point deficit to beat New Mexico on the road last weekend -- just days after an embarrassing home loss to Northern Colorado.

After that loss, "we thought we may never win another game," Fisher said. But after beating the Lobos, "we're ready to play the New England Patriots. ... We're feeling pretty good about ourselves going into Utah."

So, who's the favorite to win the Mountain West Conference now?

While the Utes had the weekend off, the rest of the league indulged in some surprising results on Saturday -- most notably the New Mexico Lobos getting hammered on the boards and blowing a 14-point lead at home and losing 72-67 to San Diego State to validate coach Steve Alford calling them "fragile" earlier in the week, despite their impressive non-conference record.

The Aztecs handed the Lobos their first home loss of the season, and avenged a humiliating home defeat to Northern Colorado as they prepare to host the Utes on Wednesday. Forward Lorrenzo Wade scored a career-high 23 points for the Aztecs -- including 10 straight at one point -- suggesting the Utes could have a tough match-up, considering all of their frontcourt injuries.

Meanwhile, defending tournament champion UNLV played lethargic defense and lost for the sixth straight time at Air Force, where Tim Anderson -- the senior guard whom the Utes smothered in their victory over the Falcons last weekend -- erupted for 27 points in a 65-53 victory. The Falcons shot 62 percent after making just 3 of 18 shots in the second half against the Utes.

"You can't be happy with that," UNLV coach Lon Kruger said. "They had their way with pretty much anything they wanted to do offensively."

But the Brigham Young Cougars looked as strong as you would expect a defending regular-season champ to look against overmatched Colorado State, beating the Rams 92-73 to extend their homecourt winning streak to 40 games.

And in a game between two teams that could hardly matter less to the league title chase, TCU broke out behind Henry Salter and Kevin Langford and blasted Wyoming 83-56 in Fort Worth. The Cowboys shot 0-for-12 from the three-point line in the first half, and supposedly all-conference guards Brandon Ewing and Brad Jones combined for virtually nothing until the game was out of reach.

Coach Jim Boylen was talking the other day about his Utes needing to use "some wild line-ups" in the next few games, knowing that forward Stephen Weigh is out with a knee injury and forward Kim Tillie seems unlikely to play much -- if at all -- as he recovers from a stress fracture in his leg.

And he wasn't kidding.

Knowing that they will be frighteningly thin in the frontcourt, the Utes have been preparing guards Carlon Brown and Luka Drca -- in addition to center Morgan Grim -- to spend some time at power forward when they play at San Diego State next week.

"I guess we're going to be like the Phoenix Suns," guard Carlon Brown joked.

They should hope it works out so well.

The Utes figure to be significantly undersized if and when they use the 6-foot-3 Brown and the 6-5 Drca behind junior Shaun Green at power forward. But the Utes also will lean on 6-9 forward Morgan Grim, hoping the freshman can avoid the quick fouls that sometimes plague him and stay on the floor when he's needed.

Though he often plays center, Grim said he's "pretty comfortable" playing forward alongside center Luke Nevill. "I've played that my whole life," he said.

"There's more pressure on all of us," Green said. "We just need to make sure we go in there and battle and give it our all."

Not only was coach Jim Boylen scheduled to see incoming recruit Jordan Cyphers score 22 points for Southeast High School in Kansas last night, and then catch point guard Chris Hines playing tonight for Klein Forest High School in Houston.

He's checking in on two other potential recruits for next year's recruiting class.

Forward Matt Staff is a 6-8 junior at Memorial High School in Houston, where Boylen is expected to watch him practice this morning. Boylen also plans to see 6-5 wing Kevin Perry of Westbury Christian High School later in the day, before going to see Hines.

Just as we thought, the Utes have come to the conclusion that forward Stephen Weigh won't qualify for a medical hardship waiver, because he played too many games before suffering his knee injury.

So cross your fingers that he can recover in time for the last month of the season.

On the bright side, Weigh said he was feeling "pretty good" as he hobbled out of the locker room on crutches after practice today. With him sidelined, the Utes expect to use center Morgan Grim more at power forward, as well as giving swingmen Carlon Brown and Luka Drca opportunities at that position.

When forward Stephen Weigh injured his left knee during the Utes' game against Dixie State the other night, coach Jim Boylen said the trainers and doctors expected Weigh to miss at least three weeks.

But it's even worse than that.

Boylen said today that Weigh is "basically out indefinitely" with a sprained medial collateral ligament and a bone bruise, and that the doctors have said that the sophomore will need at least a month before he's able to run again. Given that he will have lost a lot of fitness in that time -- presuming his recovery keeps to that schedule -- Weigh probably wouldn't be able to play until at least the middle of February.

Which is why the Utes are considering applying for a medical redshirt for Weigh.

That is "a good option for him," Boylen said. "I think it takes the pressure off him to get back before you're maybe ready. ... We'll do whatever is best for him, and whatever is best for us."

His ability to qualify for a medical redshirt, however, doesn't seem so good.

According to the NCAA, a player cannot have played in more than 30 percent of his team's games to be eligible for what is technically called a medical hardship waiver, and he must have suffered his injury in the first half of the season.

Since the Utes are scheduled to play 30 games -- including the Mountain West Conference tournament, which counts as only one game for hardship purposes, no matter how far the Utes might advance -- Weigh just barely suffered his latest injury in the first half of the season.

But he has played in 11 games, which is more than the nine that would be his limit under the 30 percent rule.

Of course, he was injured in the first half of two of those 11 games, and I don't know whether the NCAA would consider that. Don't know whether the fact that Weigh missed time with two separate injuries would torpedo his qualification for a medical hardship, either.

The NCAA rules say that a player who gets hurt in the first half of the season and comes back to play in the second half but aggravates the same injury is not eligible for a waiver, so I wouldn't guess Weigh would get much consideration on that point.

I'll try go dig into it a little deeper, though, and see whether the Ute trainers believe they has a better chance at a medical redshirt that maybe I'm giving them credit for, if they choose to go that direction.

Talk about spectacular.

Former Utah coach Rick Majerus has taken a team that won 20 games last season and carefully molded it ... into a team that scored only 20 points in a loss at George Washington on Thursday night -- the fewest points by a Division I team since the introduction of the shot clock in 1985-86.

"We had some issues in terms of our offensive proficiency," Majerus said.

Gee, ya think?

The Billikens missed 23 straight shots at one point, and shot 7-for-48 for the entire game. From the three-point line, they were 1-for-19. And that was against one of the weaker teams in the Atlantic 10. The Billikens play host to No. 17 Dayton on Saturday, having lost to Kent State by 41 points earlier this season.

Needless to say, many of the folks on the Billiken message boards are enduring an existential crisis this morning.

"I am ashamed to be a Billiken fan," one of them wrote.

The Utes have the weekend off before resuming their Mountain West Conference schedule, so coach Jim Boylen is taking the opportunity to go watch some of his incoming recruits.

Boylen is scheduled to watch shooting guard Jordan Cyphers play for Southeast High School of Kansas tonight in Wichita, before traveling to Houston on watch point guard Chris Hines play for Klein Forest High School on Saturday.

Assistant coaches will run the Utes through practice until Boylen returns on Sunday.

Good news for the Utes.

Looks like forward Kim Tillie has recovered enough from a stress fracture in his right leg that he will be able to start practicing next week -- with the possibility of giving the Utes a few minutes when they play at San Diego State on Wednesday.

The 6-foot-9 sophomore had X-rays performed today to assess the injury that has kept him out of the last four games and left the Utes with little inside presence outside of center Luke Nevill. The injury evidently is healed enough, the Utes said, that Tillie will work out on Monday, and the Utes will proceed from there based on how he feels.

If Tillie is able to play against the Aztecs at Cox Arena, he will be making his debut in a Mountain West Conference game. Tillie missed the entire league season last year, after breaking his ankle.

So the Utes looked far from flawless in their victory over Dixie State last night, but boy ... it sure could have been worse.

Have a look at how badly San Diego State -- the Utes' next opponent, next week -- was hammered at home by Northern Colorado of the Big Sky Conference. And remember that the Bears are in their first season of full Division I membership, finished 4-24 last season, entered the game with an RPI ranking of 293rd and had none of their nine available players standing taller than 6-foot-7.

"This is a very bad loss that is going to leave a very bad taste in our mouths," the Aztecs' Lorrenzo Wade said. "I'm embarrassed. Not to take anything away from [Northern Colorado] because they came in here and played well, but I'm personally embarrassed."

Oh, and just for good measure ...

Injured point guard Richie Williams pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. And how was your day, Steve Fisher?

The Utes did not originally want to play Dixie State on Wednesday night, and now we know why -- it was practically a no-win situation.

Though the Utes beat the Rebels 83-64 to avoid losing to a Division II team the way Colorado State did the other day (and the way San Diego State surprisingly lost at home to Northern Colorado, in its first season of full Division I membership after moving up from Division II), they did not look especially good doing it, and endured a tough loss when forward Stephen Weigh suffered a knee injury in the first half.

The Utes actually shot spectacularly, hitting a season-high 62 percent against another zone defense. But it was the defense and turnovers that made them look so sloppy. The Utes allowed the Rebels to hit a respectable 46.5 percent of their shots (50 percent in the second half) and committed a season-high 20 turnovers.

"A lot of our turnovers were right play, bad luck," coach Jim Boylen said. "Or, pretty good decision, poor execution. You guys with me? There's a difference. There's just a dumb play, and then there's also, pretty good look, just didn't execute it. And I thought we had too many of those tonight, for whatever reason -- casualness, I don't know.

"My thing about this team is we have to get better every day," he added. "We have to get better when we're walking from the gym to the meal room. We have to get better when we're walking from class to our car."

So, did the Utes get better against the Rebels?

"I don't know," Boylen said. "I'm going to watch the film and figure it out."

At least, there was a pretty tight race for the most amusing moment of the night.

For starters, the Rebels picked up a technical foul that Utah's Tyler Kepkay converted into two free throws before the game even started, as punishment for dunking during warm-ups. (I know what you're thinking, the Rebels could dunk?)

Then, guard Carlon Brown threw down a ferocious fast-break dunk over Dixie State's Kasey Winters and came up flexing his biceps like a bodybuilder posing for a photo, and Boylen nearly jumped out of his suit protesting a carrying violation called against guard Johnnie Bryant -- a reaction that earned him his first technical foul of his college coaching career.

At least, he said, "it didn't cost me $500, like it did in the pros."

In fact, Boylen hadn't picked up a technical since Hue Hollins gave him one while he was an assistant coach with the Rockets playing the Jazz in Salt Lake City on Christmas Day years ago.

Boylen also grabbed the microphone immediately after the game, and worked on getting the fans fired up for the Utes' next home game, against rival Brigham Young on Jan. 19. (I think I got most of it, though I might have missed half a sentence here or there):

"Thank you for hanging with us tonight and I want to thank you for helping me and my staff rebuild this program," he practically shouted into the mic. "We are going to do our hardest work to give you something that you can be proud of. We have a huge game the 19th against the Team Down South, and I need everybody to come ready to get in the stance. The 19th at 2 o'clock. Be here early, we're going to play our butts off. Thanks for the support. We can't build it without you, but we're going to build it for you. Thank you!"

Among other tidbits worth mentioning:

-- With his scooping, reverse lay-up midway through the first half, Johnnie Bryant became the 33rd player in school history to score 1,000 points in his career. Bryant finished with 19 points, giving him an average of 16.6 in his last five games, and was also subject of the best handmade sign, which read: WWJBD -- What Would Johnnie Bryant Do?

-- Hate to kick a guy when he's down, but forward Stephen Weigh still hasn't hit a basket since he was injured on Nov. 19, and now he's expected to be out at least three weeks with a sprained left knee. Weigh missed both shots he took during the game -- he also missed one that he took for kicks after a whistle -- bringing his shooting slump to 0-for-16.

-- Center Morgan Grim finally managed to stay on the floor for a few minutes, and not get called for all manner of ticky-tack fouls. He played 15 minutes, and scored five points with three rebounds, two assists and two blocks against two turnovers.

There's not much reason to think the Utes will have any problem defeating Dixie State tonight at the Huntsman Center, but coach Jim Boylen clearly doesn't want his players to think that way.

"It's a game that you have to come ready to play," he said. "It's a game where you take pride in your work and you keep trying to get better and you represent your team at home. ... We have to get better every time out, and we're going to try to do that."

The Utes will be trying to avoid another sluggish start and remedy the shooting woes that have plagued them in their last few games, against a Division II team that is 3-10 and riding a five-game losing streak. But that might not be so easy, if the Utes perceive the Rebels as too much of a pushover and come out lethargically again.

The Rebels don't have a starter taller than 6-foot-7, but they evidently believe that being an underdog -- there is no official line on the game, however -- will allow them to "have fun, play relaxed and hopefully play well," in the words of point guard Dan Stock.

"They have everything to lose and we don't," freshman forward Derek Owen added. "If we come out strong and do our best, I think we'll win."

That might be overstating it a bit, but who knows?

After all, Colorado State just lost at home to Panhandle State of Oklahoma, a Division II team that beat the Rams 99-91 in overtime on Tuesday night. The Rams had not lost to a Division II team in nearly 22 years.

"It's beyond words," CSU coach Tim Miles said. "It's humiliating. I feel like I've embarrassed our university and our fans."

The Utes certainly don't want to have to offer the same kind of remarks after the game tonight.

Most of the Utes will get the day off after they play Dixie State at the Huntsman Center on Wednesday, but injured forward Kim Tillie has an appointment.

He's getting another X-ray.

The Utes will have doctors examine Tillie again to see if the stress fracture in his right leg that has kept him out of the last three games has healed yet. Coach Jim Boylen said he hopes the sophomore forward will be able to play at San Diego State next week, by which time he will have had more than three weeks of rest.

"I'd like to have him by then," Boylen said. "I don't know if we will."

Tillie is able to walk without pain and without the boot that he had been wearing to help speed healing, and Boylen said that doctors told him that the injury already was showing signs of healing the first time it appeared on an X-ray.

"So he was playing with a healing stress fracture," Boylen said.

The Utes clearly could use Tillie back in the lineup, to give them another inside presence and take some of the pressure of center Luke Nevill. Tillie had been averaging 5.9 points and 4.1 rebounds per game.

We've talked quite a bit here about the Utes' recent slow starts and poor shooting against zone defenses, which they no doubt hope to remedy when they play Division II Dixie State in the Huntsman Center on Wednesday night.

But coach Jim Boylen makes a good point.

"We seem to figure it out as games go," he said.

While the Utes struggled out of the gate in almost every half of the last three games -- against Idaho State, Gonzaga and Air Force -- and shot poorly against a zone in the early going, they have noticeably improved each time as the game progressed.

The Utes shot a combined 22-for-64 for 34 percent in the first half of the last three games, but 35-for-70 in the second half. Obviously, that's 50 percent and much closer to the overall rate at which the Utes made shots over the first 10 games to rank among the best in the nation.

What's more, they have outscored their last three opponents by a combined 71-40 over the last 10 minutes of the game, and closed strong in earlier games against UC Irvine, Utah State and Missouri State. That suggests a still young team that needs a minute to figure out what to do against looks that it's perhaps not accustomed to seeing, but also one that, as Boylen has said, is fit enough to play well down the stretch.

"Maybe it's just we're not as comfortable against the zone yet," Boylen said. "All I can tell you is that we're going to work on it, we're working on it."

We've occasionally posted links here to help fans keep track of what the Utes' incoming recruits are doing in their senior years in high school, but now coach Jim Boylen has made the whole process even easier.

He's doing the work for us.

And naturally, I'm totally down with that.

During his weekly press conference, Boylen handed out a list of his incoming recruits and their attendant statistics and team records, helping fill out the picture that we've tried to paint with the help of local newspaper articles. To wit:

-- Point guard Chris Hines is averaging 15 points and 6.3 assists per game for Klein Forest High School in Texas, which is 19-2 and ranked No. 3 in the top-level Class 4A division.

-- Point guard Jace Tavita is averaging 15 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists for Brighton High School, ranked No. 4 in Utah's Class 5-A with its 9-2 record.

-- Swingman Jordan Cyphers is averaging 24 points and 8 rebounds per game for Southeast High School in Kansas, where his team is 8-0 and ranked No. 3 in top-division Class A.

-- Forward Josh Sharp is averaging 13 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 blocks for Lone Peak High School, which is 9-2 and ranked No. 1 in Utah's Class 5-A.

-- Center Jason Washburn, the most highly rated prospect in the group, is averaging 12 points, 10 rebounds, 4 blocks and 3.5 assists for Battle Creek Central High School, with is 7-1 in Class A, the top level in Michigan.

Keep in mind that most of the statistics are probably close approximations, given that most were listed as even numbers, and not every little tidbit is current.

The Utes noted that Lone Peak High School is "ranked in the Top 25 by USA Today," which is no longer the case. Of course, it also said the Knights are ranked No. 2 in the state of Utah, when in fact they are No. 1 in the most recent rankings by The Salt Lake Tribune. They also had Brighton and Lone Peak for a couple more victories than they actually possess (I've corrected that above).

But still, for a job that's being done for me, it all amounts to a pretty complete and welcome summary.

In response to our earlier post about point guard Curtis Eatmon's departure from the Utes, members of his family posted a fairly lengthy comment explaining the details of what they say happened to cause Eatmon the hip problem that kept him from playing this season.

We certainly appreciate that, and are posting the response here to make it easier to find.

Obviously, the family remains upbeat about Eatmon's recovery and potential -- though one thing they said jumped out at me. While coach Jim Boylen emphasized as his press conference today that Eatmon had never suffered a trauma to cause what he called the "condition" in his hip that ultimately required surgery, the family explained that Eatmon fell during a "pro-am" game in Salt Lake City during the summer and suffered a fracture that aggravated an impingement in his hip.

And though I don't mean to stir the pot, there are a few other little remarks in the text that sound to me almost like veiled pokes at the support or care that Eatmon received with the Utes. But that's just me, guessing.

At any rate, here's the full text of the response the Eatmons posted (I split it up into several paragraphs, hoping to make it a little easier to read, though I did not otherwise change or edit the material):

"Curtis Eatmon is in Expert Hands. Curtis Eatmon in pursuit of his best business opportunity has been granted permission to contact other Universities. His future home may be uncertain, but Curtis Eatmon's drive and belief in self remain as lethal as ever. Curtis's work ethic, mental and physical toughness, competitive spirit, and tremendous athleticism are the drivers which will expedite his imminent return to the basketball court.

"When you are in a battle you quickly find out who genuinely supports you within the core of integrity, character, and credibility. An excellent example is the UCLA support of Josh Shipp and the University of Texas support of LaMarcus Aldridge in successfully overcoming their injury. To all of Curtis genuine supporters his family would like to take this time to say thank-you.

"Curtis sustained a fall during the Salt Lake City Summer Pro Am on July third, and according to Dr. Philippon this displacement caused a fracture of a bone that aggravated an impingement in his hip. Curtis has been playing with this injury prior to the Australian tour and throughout the September and October conditioning period. The femur impingement is commonly misdiagnosed as a groin injury unless due diligence is performed. The Eatmon family performed their due diligence and was extremely pleased to obtain the expert hands of Dr. Philippon from the Stedman-Hawkins clinic in Vail, Colorado whom performed the successful arthroscopic procedure which resulted in an excellent prognosis for his hip.

"Curtis is currently at his residence in California receiving Mom's home cooking, where he is well on his way to a quick recovery, with an increased vertical leap above what he showcased at the Utes October midnight madness slam dunk contest."

We knew it was coming, and finally it happened.

The Utes have released point guard Curtis Eatmon from his scholarship. Coach Jim Boylen announced the move at his weekly press conference today, and insisted that it did not come because Eatmon has been injured all year, but because the coaches don't believe he's good enough to contribute.

"I didn't feel it was fair to keep him, for another two years, on my roster, when his opportunity would not be there in my mind," Boylen said. "I think that's fair."

The Utes had long planned for Eatmon not to return next season, after the sophomore had not impressed them during their summertime exhibition tour in Australia. The plan became more clear when Eatmon was allowed to leave the team after fall semester classes concluded last month, in advance of the Dec. 20 surgery in Colorado (rather than Utah) that aimed to repair his troublesome hips.

Boylen said Eatmon had a "condition" with his hips that existed before he joined the Utes last season. The condition manifested itself into repeated groin strains -- he never suffered a specific injury trauma, Boylen said -- and was not properly diagnosed until last month.

Not that it mattered, for his future with the Utes.

"He knew before the surgery, he knew before the decision was made to have surgery, that he would not be back at Utah," Boylen said. "Please make no mistake about it, he is not being released because he's injured."

Eatmon played 29 games for the Utes last season, and made three starts. He averaged 1.6 points and 1.0 rebounds in 11.3 minutes per game. His scholarship for the spring semester has been awarded to former walk-on forward Jonathan Downie, though it will be used on an incoming player next season.

Center Luke Nevill scored a season-low seven points for the Utes in their victory over Air Force over the weekend, but coach Jim Boylen said the junior played his best game of the season.

Why?

Defense, mostly.

Repeating on the weekly Mountain West Conference teleconference what I believe he said either on his post-game or weekly radio show, Boylen credited the 7-foot-1 Nevill with a strong defensive game, blocking a shot, altering several others, grabbing 10 rebounds and making a steal in a season-high 37 minutes.

"He held down the fort," Boylen said. "He challenged shots, he blocked shots. But he communicated and he helped everybody. That's what I'm trying to get him to do, get him to be a leader."

Boylen also provided the light moment of the day, when asked about making the adjustment to Utah. Boylen acknowledged enduring his share of trouble learning the pronunciation peculiarities of some Utah towns such as Tooele and Hurricane.

"I've gotten a bunch of those wrong so far," he said.

Orem tripped him up, he said, and he mistakenly described Riverton as "Rivertown" (although that seems like a simple enough mistake to me). "I've made some mistakes along the way," he said, "but I promise I'll get better."

Could've been worse, though.

Posed basically the same question, Colorado State's Tim Miles said he also has made plenty of mistakes, but that shouldn't come as a big surprise because he's a guy who also "mispronounced my mother-in-law's name for about eight months."

Probably you've noticed that over the past few games, the Utes' most productive passer has not been starting point guard Tyler Kepkay. Nor has it been forward Shaun Green, so deft at feeding the post. Center Luke Nevill, out of the double-team?

Try again.

It's Luka Drca, the back-up guard who plays less than half the game.

The sophomore from Serbia had another impressive game against Air Force over the weekend -- and we're not just talking about his behind-the-back crossover dribble to set up a three-pointer from the top of the circle, either.

Drca handed out five assists (along with four points and three rebounds) in the 58-36 victory over the Falcons, giving him a team-high 21 in the last four games. Not bad, for a guy who averages barely 16 minutes per game this season.

"I used to play a lot of pick-and-roll back home," he said. "That's what we do the most. So I'm really, really comfortable playing all kind of pick-and-rolls and ... always like the bigger guards are guarding me, so I can do whatever I want with the ball. It's much, much easier when a bigger guy is guarding you than someone who's fast and small."

Makes sense.

The only downside is that Drca usually commits a couple of turnovers to go along with all of his assists (he had a frightful five against Idaho State), though against the Falcons he managed to avoid committing a traveling violation that seemed to become his trademark mistake.

But still ... two turnovers against four, five or six assists? The Utes would love to have that kind of production out of all their players. As it stands, their assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.16 ranks just barely third in the Mountain West Conference.

Now that the Utes are into Mountain West Conference play, we'll try to focus our Sunday posts on what else is going on around the league -- especially as it relates to the Utes.

The biggest thing, this week?

San Diego State's Richie Williams.

The Aztec starting point guard suffered a broken left wrist when he came down awkwardly from a lay-up against Sam Houston State last month, and is expected to be out until at least Feb. 1. That means freshman D.J. Gay will be running the team when the Utes visit next week.

That could have a huge impact.

Gay scored only three points and the Aztecs again wobbled in the second half of a 64-57 victory over TCU at Cox Arena in San Diego on Saturday.

Of course, Williams wasn't the only casualty this week.

Colorado State's Stuart Creason is out indefinitely with a foot injury, and the veteran center sat out the Rams' opener against UNLV. As a result, the Rams went small and almost outran the Rebels, before losing 65-62 at Moby Arena in Fort Collins.

And in perhaps the most telling of the league openers, the New Mexico Lobos showed they might really be the team to beat by ending a 10-game losing streak spanning nearly 12 years at Wyoming. Point guard Jamal Smith scored 24 points and the Lobos won 99-92 in double-overtime, extending their winning streak to seven games.

Several teams in the league will play a mid-week non-conference game -- the Utes entertain Dixie State at the Huntsman Center on Wednesday night -- before returning to league action next weekend. That's when the Brigham Young Cougars will play their first league game, while the Utes have the weekend off.

So, I guess this is why coach Jim Boylen wants to improve the defense so badly.

The offense is going south.

The Utes were awful for big chunks of their 58-36 victory over the Air Force Falcons in their Mountain West Conference opener at the Huntsman Center today, making just five baskets in the first half and ultimately shooting just 43 percent.

It was the third straight game they started terribly -- the opening minutes of almost any half resemble a funeral march anymore, including that dreadfully morose "Take ... It ... A-Waaay" chant the students and band insist on slogging through -- and the third straight game that a team that had ranked among the nation's best at shooting looked most of the time as if it couldn't hit its backside with both hands.

Sure, guard Johnnie Bryant caught fire early and rescued the Utes, but everybody else was awful -- to the tune of 8-for-21 shooting. It's a darn fine thing, in other words, that the Utes were able to hold the Falcons to 3-for-18 shooting and 13 points after halftime.

"We hung in there, when our offense wasn't going," coach Jim Boylen said. "Our defense kept us in there, which is the way we want to play. We want to be a defensive team first, and let our offense come around. I thought it did."

And they won, which is the entire point.

But how far can the Utes get in the league this season if they don't start getting more production on the offensive end? After all, they're shooting just 42 percent over the last three games -- only 38.9 percent, if you exclude Bryant -- after having hit better than 50 percent through the first 10 games.

My theory is that opposing teams are packing it down on defense, knowing that center Luke Nevill is really the only inside threat for the Utes, especially with forward Kim Tillie hurt and forward Stephen Weigh still straining to regain his form.

And while it's true that the Utes have a strong fleet of outside shooting threats that can take advantage of the attention paid to Nevill, the Gonzaga game showed that even if the Utes hit a strong 40 percent from three-point range, that doesn't necessarily make up for missing a pile of other shots.

So we'll see what happens going forward. But if I were a Utah fan, I'd feel a lot better if the Utes starting scorching the nets a little more often, even if that defense looked awfully strong against the Falcons.

Among other tidbits worth mentioning:

-- Guard Johnnie Bryant led the Utes in scoring for the third time in four games, and he's shooting 22-for-41 (and 17-for-36 from three-point range) in that span. It's his best stretch of the season, and he's averaging 16 points per game in it.

-- Yeah, the zone defense was intent on containing center Luke Nevill, and the 7-foot-1 center did get to the free-throw line a few times while making a big impact on defense. But for him to not make a basket until the 9:12 mark of the second half only makes the Utes more dependent on the three-point shot. He simply has to finish more chances, and produce more than seven points.

-- Look at guard Luka Drca. Once again, he was the most effective passer for the Utes, piling up 5 assists (with four points and three rebounds) in just 19 minutes. He has a team-high 21 assists over the last four games despite playing barely half as much as starting point guard Tyler Kepkay, and did not even commit his usual traveling violation against the Falcons.

-- Guard Lawrence Borha enjoyed a productive day, after "grinding" through some off-nights the past few games. Not only did he hold Air Force's Tim Anderson to seven points on 1-for-7 shooting, but he scored eight points (all from the free-throw line), grabbed four rebounds, made three assists and a steal against two turnovers. Teammate Carlon Brown wasn't so lucky; he was scoreless for the second straight game, amid foul trouble.

-- Poor Stephen Weigh. The sophomore forward played 10 minutes but again could not shake out of his funk, missing both shots he tried to extend his shooting slump to 0-for-14 since returning from an injury.

-- Lone Peak's Tyler Haws attended the game and visited with the coaches afterward, the day after Boylen watched the highly sought junior score 29 points in a victory over Brighton.

The Utes might be worrying about fixing what they have done wrong during the preseason, but the Air Force Falcons are worrying about something else today at the Huntsman Center:

Center Luke Nevill.

Though local fans have been frustrated by Nevill this season, the 7-foot-1 junior has a history of making trouble for the Falcons, having combined for 34 points on 16-of-21 shooting, 15 rebounds and five blocks against them last season (though the Utes did get blown out on the road).

So the Falcons are focused on somehow controlling Nevill, whom Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said has improved tremendously from last season. Former Utah coach Ray Giacoletti said something similar last weekend, before the Utes played Gonzaga -- though Nevill has played fewer minutes per game (29.0) this season than he did last (31.2).

"He's focal point of their offense -- they love to go inside-out," Reynolds said. "It's his third year in the league. He's more mobile, and he has more stamina -- that's the key for him. He's able to play longer extended minutes than in the past. He's improved that tremendously."

Meanwhile, coach Jim Boylen had high praise for Reynolds, the former Falcons assistant who lost four starters while replacing Jeff Bzdelik, who left to take the Colorado job.

"I don't know if there's a coach who's done a better job, in the country, of getting his team to really come along and play, and play within the system and play together," Boylen said. "Unbelievable job."

Still, the Utes are 14-point favorites against the Falcons, and can extend their homecourt winning streak to five games with a victory.

In other league openers today:

-- UNLV visits Colorado State, hoping to surprise skeptics who don't believe the undersized Rebels can contend for the league title.

-- New Mexico plays at Wyoming, where the Lobos aim to start proving that their strong preseason makes them "the team to beat," in the words of forward Chad Toppert.

-- TCU plays at San Diego State, hoping they have enough pieces in the right places and a new understanding of what's needed to get their first road win of the season.

So, anybody have the over/under on number of tips or steals forward Shaun Green manages while defending baseline inbounds passes against Air Force on Saturday?

I'm gonna say two.

Green has become pretty proficient at the task lately, having remarkably forced four turnovers in the last two games by deflecting inbounds passes along the baseline. That's a classic example of what coach Jim Boylen calls a winning play that doesn't always show up in the box score, so of course I was eager to learn the secret.

"I have long arms," Green said, laughing and stretching his arms like a vainglorious football player who just scored a touchdown.

But seriously, folks ...

"We have a system called 'Brutus' that we have for inbounds plays," Green explained. "I just have to sit there and try to time the ball the best that I can, and I've just gotten lucky the past couple of games. Timed it really well and got a couple of tips.

"That's what our goal is," he added, "either to make them throw the ball into the backcourt and take them out of any of their plays or just try to get a deflection or get a steal."

Mission accomplished, at least lately.

Guard Lawrence Borha can hardly wait for the Air Force Falcons to roll into the Huntsman Center on Saturday.

After all, he has some redeeming to do.

One of the pleasant suprises of the early season with his unbelievable shooting and relentless defense, the junior has actually started to fade a little bit over the last few games. His shooting percentage has plummeted -- he was hitting 65.9 percent in the first nine games, but only 25 percent in the last three -- and his defense and off-the-ball energy don't seem quite as fierce as it they had been earlier.

Most glaringly, Gonzaga's Matt Bouldin scored a career-high 26 points in a 61-59 victory over the Utes a few days ago, having started to heat up with seven points and a steal against Borha in the first four minutes of the second half before Borha was benched for the rest of the game. It's not a coincidence that the Utes have removed from their weekly press release an item that detailed how well Borha has been defending the opposing team's best perimeter player.

"I don't know, I think I just grind on playing bad," Borha said. "I had a bad game, like, four games ago, and I just grinded on it and grinded on it, because I want to be good. And that's what happened. I didn't let it go and I need to get away from that. I need to just let it go."

Not sure which game got Borha down, because he was still pretty good against Missouri State four games ago. Maybe he meant the Oregon game before that, when he was fairly productive on offense but strained to help contain the blazing Duck backcourt. He also has committed 10 turnovers in five games since then (three against the Ducks), after committing just four in the first seven games.

"I'm still confident in my game, but I'm not doing the things that I was doing at the beginning of the year," he said. "I have to get back to that."

Borha will get his chance against the Falcons, when he figures to draw the defensive assignment against senior guard Tim Anderson -- the Falcons' leading scorer who’s coming off a career-high 30 points in a loss at Wake Forest last weekend.

Funny that my colleague should write a column about senior guard Chris Grant in the newspaper today, since I was just noticing again at practice yesterday the unique relationship Grant seems to have with coach Jim Boylen.

There was a moment when Boylen called Grant over, out of a drill that his teammates were performing, and slung his arm around the senior's neck. The two talked quietly for a moment, walking over to an area away from the action, with Boylen seeming to do more listening than talking.

Which makes sense.

It was just the other day that Boylen was almost getting emotional about Grant in a post-game press conference.

Asked about Grant's first (and still, only) basket of the season with 23 seconds left in the victory over Idaho State last week, Boylen began describing what he called a special relationship with the 24-year-old former walk-on (he will be 25 on Feb. 1) who has played only 11 minutes all season off the end of the bench.

"It's not really coach-player," Boylen said. "It's more like brother-brother."

Boylen said he has never had a player quite like Grant, and praised him as one of the key ingredients that help keep the Utes together, and someone with whom Boylen can actually talk on a level above that of player-coach. It was a rather touching moment, especially as post-game press conferences go, and seemed to explain a lot about that moment in practice yesterday.

There are a lot of coaches who like to give lip service to the notion that "nobody has higher expectations of my team than I do," and then in practically the same breath try to subtly establish reasons for not expecting too much.

So far, coach Jim Boylen is not one of them.

No, Boylen seems to be sticking with the grand expectations he has for the Utes, even while facing the perfect opportunity to remind everybody just how far his team has come since last season.

With the Utes opening league play against Air Force on Saturday, Boylen complained after practice today about their "missed opportunites" so far, rather than praising the fact that they're vastly improved from last season in most areas. They're 8-4 instead of 5-8 heading into league play, ranked far better on defense, and one of the best shooting teams in the country.

"I'm a little disappointed," he said. "I sense a tone of complacency that we're 8-4, and I don't like that. I'm pushing this team to be more greedy, and don't be scared to be successful. Is 8-4 where we want to be? Not in my mind. To me, we missed some opportunities to have a better record than that. ... We have to learn from that and move on."

Wow, that's impressive.

Of course, it's a little easier to be that way when you're still in your first year and the expectations have not started to work against you. But still, it's refreshing, never mind the truth. The Utes indeed had good chances to beat Washington, Oregon and Gonzaga -- quality teams, all -- and yet disappointingly came up short down the stretch.

That must be why the players all seem to believe that they have a serious chance to win the Mountain West Conference.

Guard Luka Drca said the Utes "should win this league, seriously," -- and his response wasn't some broken-English mistranslation. I asked the native Serbian again, and he repeated his answer. Similarly, guard Tyler Kepkay insisted that "we're good," while forward Shaun Green said "we're great" -- again, I made sure that was exactly what he meant to say -- and that because of their experience against teams like the Huskies, Ducks and Zags, the Utes will be able to finish tight games during the conference season.

"We're still a young team, for the most part," Green said. "We have a new coach, a new system. We're getting the system down, we're going into conference. It's a whole new season. We're starting over again. So we've been through the first part, been through the battles, lost some of them. But I just feel that if some of those situations come up again, we're going to be fine in them, because we've been through it."

That should be music to Boylen's ears.

"I didn't come here to be 8-4," Boylen said. "I came here to be a winning program and to build a winning program. Our goal is to be a top-20 program. That's our goal. I compare everything I do to Michigan State, and they're I think 12-1 and in the top 10. I know how they practice, I know how they execute, I know what they value, and I'm trying to instill that here."

And now, the good news.

Not only are the Utes entering Mountain West Conference play against Air Force on Saturday as the best shooting team in the league, but they're also the best team from the free-throw line. And considering they lost so many close games last season, that could be huge.

The Utes started the season making only 67.1 percent from the free-throw line in the first four games.

But since then?

Led by senior guard Johnnie Bryant, the Utes are shooting 80.4 percent, giving them a season average of 74.5 percent. If they remain on their remarkable pace, they could challenge the school record of 79.1 percent set back in 1992-93 -- or at least crack the top five in season free-throw percentage.

Bryant has made 14 of his 15 free throws this season, and three teammates -- guards Tyler Kepkay and Lawrence Borha and forward Shaun Green -- are shooting at least 80 percent. Now, if only they could get to the free-throw line more often -- they have tried, by far, the fewest attempts in the league -- they'll be in business.

Had a conversation the other day with someone who would know, and he told me that the pro scouts have all but stopped paying attention to center Luke Nevill because of the apparent regression in much of his game this season.

And this just might confirm it.

ESPN's Chad Ford has put together a list of the Top 100 NBA Prospects ... and Nevill isn't on it. Think about that. The top 100 guys in college basketball (there are a few foreign players sprinkled in) -- that's not far from twice as many players as will be selected in the NBA Draft next spring -- and a 7-foot-1 center with tremendous skill isn't on it.

Absolutely stunning.

Of course, this will come as no surprise to anybody who has seen Nevill play this season. It's hard to imagine that any team would burn a draft pick -- especially a first-rounder, with its attendant guaranteed contract -- on a guy who doesn't rebound out of his area, strains to handle physical play and has somehow missed so many of the easy chances he has created for himself with his obvious talent.

To be sure, there's always going to be a team willing to take a chance on a guy like Nevill, because you can't teach height, and height always has an effect defensively. (Call it the Ostertag Rule). But until Nevill rediscovers his groove on offense -- is it just me, or should he knock it off with the baby hook and square up once in awhile? -- and learns to play a little tougher, it's hard to see him making many draft lists or doing much more in the NBA than filling a seat near the end of the bench.

Just picked up a little information from the Utes on how you can get individual tickets for the rivalry game against Brigham Young at the Huntsman Center on Jan. 19.

The tickets will go on sale to the general public Monday, the Utes said.

Fans can buy them over the phone at (801) 581-UTIX, on the Internet at www.UtahUtes.com or in person at the Rice-Eccles Stadium ticket office, starting at 10 a.m.

Whatever their shortcomings, it would be hard -- if not impossible -- to argue that the Utes are not entering the New Year in far better shape than they were a year ago, having compiled an 8-4 record and showed an improved defense and capacity to make plays when they need them.

Are they perfect?

Far from it.

But a year ago, they were a disastrous 5-8 at this point, mired in what would become a six-game losing streak and taking on water. Nobody wants to endure that again.

Which is why it baffles me that the Utes have started so terribly in each of their last four halves. You'd think they would be more excited to build on their budding success than to come out as flat as they have in each half against Idaho State and Gonzaga -- teams and situations disparate enough that any particular excuse (overconfident? intimidated? tired?) would not seem to fit every occasion.

Instead?

-- Starting against Idaho State at home last week, the Utes scored just six points in the first six minutes and immediately trailed a team they were favored to beat by 21 points. They shot 38 percent in the first half.

-- The Utes improved against the Bengals after halftime, shooting 50 percent and scoring 39 points to claim a 68-51 win. But not before they came out of the locker room and managed just four points in the first 5 1/2 minutes, while the Bengals dangerously cut the lead to two points.

-- Against Gonzaga on the road, both teams came out flat, but the Utes especially so. They made only 1 of their first 11 shots, scored just three points in nearly seven minutes, and shot 31 percent. They trailed by only one at the half, but should have been leading by a considerable margin.

-- The Utes again ultimately fared better after halftime against the Zags, but not until they had allowed the first 10 points of the half while going nearly 4 1/2 minutes without scoring. And because they had falled behind by as many as 12, they never could quite catch up and wound up losing 61-59.

All of that, from a team that had ranked in the top five nationally in shooting percentage through its first 10 games.

It's not as if you can pin the slow starts on any particular player or situation, either. The early play-by-play from those two games is littered with missed shots and turnovers from everybody on the roster, from center Luke Nevill to guards Tyler Kepkay, Carlon Brown, Lawrence Borha and Johnnie Bryant and forwards Shaun Green and Stephen Weigh.

And though the Utes have endured some problems off the bench -- Weigh still has not made a basket since before suffering a rib injury Nov. 19, forward Kim Tillie is out a month with a stress fracture and forward Morgan Grim has endured foul problems -- their starting lineup has not changed.

Perhaps it's just an overall "casual" attitude, about which coach Jim Boylen complained after the first half of the Gonzaga game. And while it's admirable that the Utes have been able to fight back from their wretched starts, they probably can't expect to enjoy nearly as much success as they would like if the trend continues into Mountain West Conference play.

Funny that the Utes should suffer such a close loss in a game they could have -- should have? -- won against former coach Ray Giacoletti and the Gonzaga Bulldogs last night, with luminaries such as superstar John Stockton, legendary coach Jud Heathcote and World Series MVP Mike Lowell in attendance.

That's what doomed Giacoletti, after all.

Remember, the Utes lost six games by three points or less last season, and if they had turned even a few of them around, Giacoletti perhaps doesn't get the axe and clear the way for new coach Jim Boylen.

Of course, this is the first close loss the Utes have suffered in a dozen games this season -- of which they have won eight, including a two-point win at Cal -- so Boylen couldn't be nearly as frustrated as Giacoletti became as last season progressed.

But he was still plenty annoyed.

He did not seem especially amused to answer our post-game questions about whether the Utes should have been able to get more production inside against the Bulldogs, and said that while he would rather not have to look at the stat sheet and see 27 three-point attempts, he was pleased that most of them were open shots.

Still, the last two games seem to indicate an emerging game plan against the Utes -- play a zone defense, dare them to shoot outside, and hope you can force center Luke Nevill into an unproductive offensive game and contain the rest of the Utes.

It worked for the Zags, after Idaho State seemed to show it could be effective (if not ultimately so, for the Bengals).

Until the final minutes -- either the time the Utes needed him most, or too late to matter enough -- Nevill had a hard time offensively, missing easy shot after easy shot and keeping the Utes from building what should have been a pretty substantial lead while the Zags were struggling themselves on offense.

Meanwhile, few of the other Utes did anything -- or enough, at least.

Starting guards Lawrence Borha and Carlon Brown did not score -- first time all season that has happened -- combining to miss all five of their shots, and the Utes seemed to go away from driving and dishing. They shot only six free throws, too, another sign that they were not creating enough production going to the basket.

Of course, having said all of that, the Utes were still within a possession of pulling this one out against a quality opponent on the road. And for whatever the Utes could not manage against the Zags, that probably bodes pretty well for them when they start Mountain West Conference play against Air Force next weekend.