If appearances mean anything, then Kim Tillie might be poised for a breakout season.

The 6-foot-10 sophomore forward looks tremendous, after a summer spent playing at the U-20 European Championships for his native France. Not only did he average 9.8 points and 6.4 rebounds while playing small forward to help France finish seventh in the 16-team tournament, but he seems to have put on some muscle and improved his already impressive fitness.

How much?

He led the Utes in their first 1-mile fitness test run recently, hauling his 215-pound body home in a sizzling 5 minutes and 18 seconds. Coach Jim Boylen has been impressed with him in the team's limited fall workouts, too -- he has said he can envision Tillie getting picked in the 2009 NBA Draft, then allowed to develop in Europe for a couple of years -- and Tillie said his confidence is soaring.

"I'm a little disappointed about the team part" of the European Championships, he said, "because we didn't reach our goals. But individually, I think I improved a lot. Practicing twice a day for over two months is way better than just staying here, where coaches can't work us out."

Tillie played 18 games during the summer, most of them exhibitions in preparations for the eight-game Euros in Riga, Latvia. But he said he's not worried about being worn out for his college season, after all that.

"Not really," he said, "because I had over a month to recover before I got here. I was just hanging out at home and with the family, which I don't get to do a lot during the year."

Now, maybe the Utes are finished with their 2009 recruiting class.

Coach Jim Boylen has landed an oral commitment from 6-foot-9 forward Matt Read of Collin County Community College in Texas, sources said, giving him five of them for the '09 group.

Thing is, the Utes expect to have just four scholarships available, basically from their four outgoing seniors. (Center David Foster is expected to return from an LDS Church mission, but freshman forward Josh Sharp is expected to depart on one.) But the Utes are wary of an academic casualty or other unforeseen circumstance; they unexpectedly lost a couple of players last season, and like many schools are "over-recruiting," just in case.

According to online recruiting services, the 225-pound Read chose the Utes over St. Louis -- coached by former Utah coach Rick Majerus -- and Michigan, Boylen's old nemesis from his days at Michigan State. He played at Texas-Arlington as a freshman, but redshirted as a sophomore last season because of a stress fracture in his foot and then transferred to Collin County for the upcoming season.

The Utes already had commitments from guard Marshall Henderson and forwards Jeremy Olsen, Shawn Glover and Joseph Watkins. Watkins plays at the College of Southern Idaho, where new assistant coach Barret Peery was the head coach, while the other three are all entering their senior seasons in high school -- Olsen in suburban Atlanta and Henderson and Glover in Texas.

Maybe you noticed that the Utes are playing only one exhibition game this season, after playing two last year?

There's a very specific reason.

The Utes plan to take advantage of a rule that allows them to substitute a scrimmage against another team for one of their allowable preseason exhibitions -- so long as they don't publicize or sell tickets to it. So rather than playing another overmatched lower-division opponent, the Utes will travel to scrimmage against Colorado on Nov. 1, with the Buffaloes making a return trip next season.

Even as a scrimmage, that should give the Utes a better test in advance of their rough non-conference schedule than any exhibition game could provide -- even though the Buffs have only one senior after losing their three top scorers from a 12-20 team last season.

Plus, with former Air Force coach Jeff Bzdelik coaching the Buffs with his challenging Princeton-style system, it could give the Utes a little early prep work for meeting Air Force later in the season.

He has had a few short sessions to work with his team already this fall, and coach Jim Boylen said he's encouraged about the early progress it has made.

"I'm excited about what we've got done so far," he said.

Several players are nursing nagging injuries -- sophomore guard Carlon Brown is recovering from a sore shoulder, freshman center Jason Washburn has a bruised hip and freshman guard Chris Hines sprained his ankle -- but Boylen believes his message is sinking in far earlier this season than it did last.

"We're coming," Boylen said. "We're becoming more of a team. I think you can see that."

Yes, you can.

Center Luke Nevill and Brown were among the upperclassmen who took younger players aside for encouragement or instruction during practice today, something Boylen has been trying manically to get his players to do since he arrived. Finally, it appears they're learning to do it without being pushed.

"We have five freshmen and four seniors," Boylen said. "We can't go too slow for the seniors, but you can't go too fast for the freshmen. It's like that math class, you know, where you have the kids who get it, and guy who's really struggling with it, like I was. So I'm really conscious of that, and trying to do the best we can. Our goal is to go from good to great."

Obviously, the Utes knew they weren't going to be landing Lone Peak's Tyler Haws.

But they no doubt wish they would have lost him to Stanford -- not Brigham Young.

Instead, the highly recruited 6-foot-5 shooting guard committed to the rival Cougars on Wednesday, giving coach Dave Rose a huge boost and potentially hurting the Utes for years to come. If Haws turns out to be as big a star as many are projecting, coach Jim Boylen and his Utes are going to have their hands full containing him for the next few years.

Haws had eliminated the Utes from consideration and narrowed his college choices to BYU and Stanford, and his father said it was "50-50" on which he would choose. For what it's worth, the word is that Haws liked Boylen, but didn't have as much passion for the University of Utah -- which makes some sense, considering he lives in Utah County and his father played for the Cougars.

Things have become a little dicey with freshman point guard Jace Tavita, who might not play for the Utes this season if he is ruled academically ineligible. The NCAA has "red-flagged" his transcript from Brighton High School, and is investigating whether it's sufficient for college.

If not, the 6-foot-4 guard would have to enroll in a junior college and earn an associate's degree before playing Division I basketball.

Certainly, losing Tavita would hurt, since he's one of the four players on whom coach Jim Boylen is counting in his first recruiting class to help build his program. But the Utes have a number of other guards on the roster -- Carlon Brown, Luka Drca, Lawrence Borha, Tyler Kepkay and fellow incoming freshmen Chris Hines and Jordan Cyphers -- and Tavita's academic risk was hardly unknown.

Even when they were recruiting him, the Utes knew that he had some academic improvements to make, stemming from his sophomore year of high school. He played is junior year at Patterson Prep School in North Carolina after being ruled ineligible at Brighton, though his high school coach at Brighton said he had improved markedly since his return.

The Utes believe Tavita has done the work to catch up, too, and he's enrolled in school now at his own expense until his scholarship potentially begins. Tavita has not been allowed to work out with the Utes in their limited workouts, but the Utes are hoping to hear a decision soon and are pretty confident that the NCAA will find in their favor.

Coach Jim Boylen obviously deserves a lot of credit for upgrading the schedule since taking over.

Wanna know how much?

The Utes will face arguably the most difficult non-conference schedule in the Mountain West Conference next season, judging by last year's RPI ratings of their upcoming opponents. That's about the most concrete gauge a coach has at his disposal when assembling a schedule, and assessing it now gives some easy clues about which coaches are aspiring to prove themselves and which ones either have bad teams that need an easier route or are just looking to pile up easy victories.

Boylen, he's one of the former.

The Utes will play six non-conference games against teams that finished in the top 100 of the RPI last season, and only two against teams that finished 250th or worse (there were 341 teams in NCAA Division I last season) or that play in lower divisions, such as season-opening opponent Southwest Baptist.

Only two other teams in the Mountain West have been so ambitious.

Having clearly learned the painful consequence of stacking up victories against a crap schedule, New Mexico -- left out of the NCAA Tournament last season despite its 24-7 record -- has lined up seven Top 100 teams and only two ranked 250th or worse, according to an analysis researched by director of basketball operations Jonathan Dykema. UNLV, meanwhile, is assured of playing at least five Top 100 teams -- the highlight will be a visit to Louisville -- with the possibility of another in the Global Sports Classic in Las Vegas. The Rebels will play only one team ranked 250th or worse.

San Diego State could play six Top 100 teams, but the Aztecs also could play four bottom feeders. Air Force is clearly the worst in that regard, playing only two Top 100 teams at the most while lining up eight games against Bottom 250 teams and two more against Division II teams. Wyoming also plays two lower-division opponents -- one Division II and one Division III -- along with seven games against Bottom 250 teams and only three against Top 100 teams.

Obviously, the ratings and quality of opponents could be drastically different when the games are actually played. But it's clear that Boylen, along with a few of his colleagues around the league, has really made an effort to make his victories mean something.

At long last ... we're finally back!

My apologies to all of those readers who wanted more info on the Utes in the past few weeks, but I just had to take advantage of my opportunity to travel around China after the Beijing Olympics. Now that we're home, though, we'll be getting back on the wagon right away, and getting back to providing all the Utah basketball news you can stand.

So feel free to drop a line with any questions you want answered or topics on which you want more information, and I'll be happy to pursue them as I work to get caught up with the season just a few weeks away.

Meanwhile, in an interesting side note, I had the chance in Beijing to ask point guard Patrick Mills of St. Mary's how close he came to joining the Utes back when he was being recruited from his native Australia a couple of years ago. He said he had seriously considered it, but that the Utes already had obtained a commitment from a point guard by the time he made a recruiting visit.

That point guard was Tyler Kepkay, who's entering his senior year for the Utes after enduring a rough transition from junior-college last season while Mills was burning it up as a freshman for St. Mary's. Mills was pretty impressive for the Australians at the Olympics, too, so it should be fun to watch how he and Kepkay will compare this season, now that each has a season of college experience under his belt.

And while Kepkay didn't reach the Olympics, don't forget he enjoyed some valuable summer training time with the Canadian national team. I'm guessing that with a fresh start adding to his experience, he's going to be a lot better this season ...