If nothing else, the Utes have beaten all of their in-state rivals in the recruiting battle for Pleasant Grove's C.J. Wilcox.

Now, if they can just nudge past everybody else.

As my colleague Jay Drew reporting on his recruiting blog, the all-state guard has told people that he has narrowed his college choices to the Utes and Washington -- and that he has informed Utah State and Brigham Young, among others, that they are out of the picture.

Wilcox's father -- former BYU player Craig Wilcox -- said upon hearing about the player narrowing his choices, Miami and Florida State contacted him, asking him to visit their campuses before making a decision. Craig Wilcox said he son expects to make a decision this weekend whether to open up his recruitment again, or concentrate on the Utes and Huskies.

Incidentally, the 6-foot-4 guard recently was named among the top 75 players at the Houston Kingswood Classic tournament in Texas. He checked in at No. 17 (and No. 11 among juniors), according to HoopScoopOnline.com, ahead of heralded Tyler Haws of Lone Peak High School, who was rated No. 26 and No. 16 among juniors.

Coach Jim Boylen and his staff are preparing to hold their annual summer basketball camps, with registration going on now.

The Utes will offer six different camps throughout the summer -- two Junior Ute Camps for young children, a Day Camp and an Overnight Camp for older and teen players, a Team Camp, and a Father and Son Camp. The first two begin June 9.

Call (801) 585-6183 for more information.

Looks like center Luke Nevill has lost his toughest competition.

Brigham Young's Trent Plaisted has hired an agent in anticipation of being chosen in the NBA Draft and will not return to the Cougars next season, leaving the 7-foot-1 Nevill as the clear favorite to dominate the Mountain West Conference as its premier big man.

Nevill has enjoyed some of his finest performances against Plaisted, but arguably has fallen behind his rival. While there was no serious consideration of Nevill leaving the Utes early to test his NBA prospects, at least one draft analyst -- ESPN's Chad Ford -- ranks Plaisted as a first-round pick.

Of course, Nevill can easily follow the professional path if he has a senior season that convinces scouts he can be tough enough to survive in the NBA. As it is, he carries a reputation as a soft player who isn't as productive as he should be, given his size and skills -- something coach Jim Boylen repeatedly has pledged to help change.

Don't know if anybody else saw it, but former recruit Brad Tinsley finally picked a new school last week.

He's going to Vanderbilt.

Tinsley, you'll recall, is the superstar point guard from Oregon City who wound up his prep career as the fifth-leading scorer in Oregon state history, and nearly chose the Utes last year before signing a letter-of-intent with Pepperdine.

But then the Pepperdine coach departed, Tinsley was freed from his commitment, and he became one of the hottest commodities on the recruiting market. Ultimately, he chose Vandy over Wake Forest, Oregon and Arizona State, potentially giving the Commodores a top-15 recruiting class this year, according to Rivals.com.

There was never really much of a chance that Tinsley would wind up with the Utes, since they did not have a scholarship available to him, but it's interesting that he now will team with another one-time Utah recruiting target -- Andrew Ogilvy.

Ogilvy, of course, is the Australian whom former coach Ray Giacoletti had his eye on some time ago. But again, the Utes did not have a scholarship available for him, so Giacoletti recommended Ogilvy to Vandy coach Kevin Stallings.

The rest is history.

The 6-foot-11 Ogilvy wound up averaging 17 points and 6.7 rebounds as a freshman for the Commodores last season -- they finished 26-8 -- and evidently helped convince Tinsley that Nashville was the place for him.

"I pretty much hung out with A.J. a lot," Tinsley said. "He mainly showed me around the place. ... It was sweet."

Jeremy Olsen primarily plays center for his prep team at Collins Hill High School in suburban Atlanta.

But the 6-foot-10, 220-pound junior said coach Jim Boylen told him he expects Olsen to play more of a versatile power forward role when Olsen joins the Utes for the 2009-10 season.

"I'm a versatile four and I can play inside and out, just depending on what team we're playing, who's guarding me," Olsen said. "I can step out on the perimeter or take them inside. I can do both. ... I'll just do whatever will help my team win."

That suggests the Olsen will be more a potential replacement for forward Shaun Green, who will have finished his career by the time Olsen arrives, than center Luke Nevill. The Utes are bringing in 7-foot center Jason Washburn next season to back up Nevill in the Australian's final season, and expect to have 7-2 center David Foster returning from an LDS Church mission for the 2009-10 season.

Olsen said he was happy to have his hectic recruitment behind him already so he can concentrate on his senior year of high school next fall, and that he chose the Utes ahead of teams such as Xavier, Notre Dame, Alabama and Brigham Young because "they had everything I was looking for."

Not only did Olsen love the coaching staff, but he has many relatives -- two sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles -- still living in Salt Lake City. Olsen himself lived in Salt Lake until he was 7 years old, when his father changed jobs and moved to Georgia.

Olsen is a member of the LDS Church, but said he remains uncertain on whether he will serve a two-year mission (frankly, he sounded doubtful, but hesitant to admit it). In any case, he said he definitely plans to be with the Utes for his freshman season, and he's thrilled for the opportunity to join the Utes and have Boylen attempt to mold him into an NBA player.

"It just felt like it was the place for me," Olsen said.

It's also worth noting that the Utes have finalized their deal to play LSU at the Huntsman Center next season, in exchange for a return trip the following year.

The game is set for Jan. 6.

The Tigers might not be the cream of the SEC crop in basketball -- they finished 13-18 last season, losing in the first round of the league tournament and costing coach John Brady his job -- but they are generally the kind of athletic team that can provide a good challenge.

Plus, they provide the intrigue of matching a coach the Utes once wanted against one they ultimately hired. New coach Trent Johnson was the Utes' initial target after Rick Majerus left, before he turned them down to stay at Nevada (but jump ship moments later to Stanford) while the Utes shifted down and hired Ray Giacoletti. We all know how that worked out.

Maybe you missed it, since we made it so easy to miss ... but the Utes have secured their first commitment of the 2009 recruiting class.

Forward Jeremy Olsen, a 6-foot-10 forward/center from the Atlanta area whom coach Jim Boylen visited back in February, committed to Boylen over the weekend.

Olsen lived in Utah as a young boy, before starting a prep career at Collins Hill High School in suburban Suwanee, Ga. He averaged 15.2 points and 10.3 rebounds per game last season, while drawing recruiting interest from Xavier, Tulane, Iowa, Notre Dame, Alabama, Auburn and Brigham Young.

Scheduled to join the Utes for the 2009-10 season, Olsen figures to fall in line behind incoming 7-foot center Jason Washburn -- center Luke Nevill will be gone by then -- or perhaps become a particularly big power forward. We'll see what he has to say about all of that, just as soon as we can reach him ...

Coach Jim Boylen is expected to join nearly a dozen other coaches at the Coaches vs. Cancer Las Vegas Golf Classic that begins next week at TPC Summerlin, the home of the PGA Tour in Las Vegas.

The event benefits the American Cancer Society and Nevada Cancer Institute.

Organizers said Boylen will join coaches such as USC's Tim Floyd, Nevada's Mark Fox, Creighton's Dana Altman and UNLV's Lon Kruger at the event (not to mention Texas A&M's Mark Turgeon, a close friend of the man Boylen replaced, Ray Giacoletti), with two rounds of golf starting Tuesday, sandwiched around an "exclusive" reception.

Can't wait to see how Boylen's game stacks up ...

The Utes were not among the 33 teams publicly honored by the NCAA last week for compiling multi-year Academic Progress Report scores in the top 10 percent of all men's basketball programs.

But they're not in the dumper, either.

The Utes have a multi-year APR of 930, according to figures released by the NCAA, exceeding the Division I average for men's basketball teams by just two points -- and more importantly, eclipsing the mark of 925 that needs to be cleared to avoid sanctions. That's a big relief, considering the Utes have endured serious player turnover in recent years, precisely one of the things the APR is designed to dissuade.

And while the Utes don't measure up with rivals Brigham Young and Air Force -- the two Mountain West Conference schools that were honored among the top 10 percent -- they did exceed the average in all of the pertinent sub-groups the NCAA published. They nudged above the average score among public institutions (918) and BCS schools (925), for example, though they tied with baseball as nearly becoming the lowest-scoring sports at Utah.

Thank heavens for the golf team, and its 928 score.

All in all, the Utes fell within the 40th-to-50th percentile among men's basketball teams, and within the 10th-to-20th percentile among all sports.

That's not bad -- just imagine the poor Weber State football team under former Utah coach Ron McBride, losing nearly six scholarships because of APR problems -- but count on coach Jim Boylen to work hard to improve it. Being one of the lowest-scoring teams at the university that just barely squeaks by is not something that is going to sit well with him, in the long term.

Looks like coach Jim Boylen has dipped into the junior-college ranks to find his latest assistant coach.

The Utes announced today that Boylen has hired Barret Peery to complete the coaching staff after the departures of former assistants Marty Wilson and Chris Jones. The 37-year-old Peery had been the head coach at the College of Southern Idaho for the past three years, leading the Golden Eagles to a 85-19 record and three straight Scenic West Athletic Conference championships in that span.

The Payson native also was named the league's coach of the year last season, after guiding the Golden Eagles to a 30-2 overall record.

"This is a great hire for us," Boylen said in a statement. "Barret is a quality coach and an outstanding recruiter. He has national recruiting connections, is aggressive and sharp. We want to be a running team and Barret will help us become that. CSI averaged 110 points a game last year."

The recruiting connections might help the most, though.

CSI has long since become a harbor for some of the nation's top juco talent; all nine sophomores from last season's CSI team have accepted scholarships at Division I programs. Now, with Peery in crimson and white, it's not hard to imagine the the Utes becoming a potential destination for some of the players who wind up in Twin Falls, such as Daequon Montreal, the 6-foot-8 forward who will be the top returing scorer for the Golden Eagles next season.

The Utes also now have a definitively Southern Utah feel, with Peery joining recently hired Stan Johnson as former SUU players and coaches on the staff. Peery also started his coaching career as a graduate assistant in Cedar City -- he actually recruited Johnson -- before moving on to jobs at Utah Valley and Portland State.

Even more than that, it's clear that Boylen is willing to gamble somewhat with relatively inexperienced assistants, provided they have shown him they have the energy, passion and desire to work as hard as he demands, as he tries to rebuild the program. Boylen had made it clear that he had no interest in hiring coaches who did not seem committed to his vision, no matter their pedigree.

"It was going to take something special for me to leave CSI and that's how I feel about this job at the University of Utah," Peery said in a statement. "I am excited about the opportunity to work with Coach Boylen. I truly believe in what he has going on and his vision for the program."

We noted forward Stephen Weigh's successful pro debut in his native Australia last week, but now there's more news -- Weigh has signed to join the Brisbane Bullets of the National Basketball League for the 2008-09 season.

Meanwhile, from what I can gather, he will continue playing for the Rockhampton Rockets of the QABL -- basically a second-division developmental league.

"Stephen is a great multifaceted player who can shoot, pass and dribble," Brisbane coach Joey Wright said in a statement announcing the signing a few days ago. For his age Stephen is excellent and his work ethic and hard work are second to none and we look forward to building a team around such an exciting young talent."

Make sure you tell assistant coach Jeff Smith congratulations, the next time you see him.

Smith and his fiancee, Alison -- also an employee of the athletic department -- are getting married today in Michigan, where coach Jim Boylen is attending the wedding. After the celebration, the Smiths plan to honeymoon in the Bahamas -- excellent choice -- before returning to their home in Salt Lake City in a week or so.

Coach Jim Boylen still hasn't filled the vacant assistant coaching position on his staff, but the Utes are undergoing some other changes a little further down the letterhead.

Director of player development Derek Deprey is leaving the Utes -- his last day is today, director of operations Jonathan Dykema said -- to become the general manager of a new health club in Milwaukee. That's where Deprey and his pregant wife are from, so they will be around old friends and family as they start their own family. Shame for the Utes, though; Deprey is a terrific guy.

With Deprey leaving, the Utes have promoted video coordinator Jason Larson -- his cousin is Tribune photographer Leah Hogsten, incidentally -- to director of player development, and moved graduate assistant Mark Plaisier up to Larson's video job. That's good news for both of those guys.

And one other note ...

While the Utes already have an impressive home schedule for next season that includes Gonzaga, Oregon and Cal, they are expecting to make it even better by adding LSU to the group. The deal hasn't been finalized yet, but the Utes expect that it will be soon.