Want to know one big reason the Utes are riding a four-game winning streak?

Free throws.

Not only have the Utes attempted more -- by a wide margin -- than they did to this point last season, but they have held their opponents to far fewer, suggesting that they're doing a much better job of defending hard without fouling, something coach Jim Boylen has emphasized since becoming coach.

And it's a trend that could pay off big as the season progresses, considering the Utes ranked last in the Mountain West Conference last season in free-throws attempted.

The actual numbers are staggering.

The Utes are 88-for-115 for 76.5 percent from the line through the first five games of the season, compared to 54-for-79 for 68.4 percent through the same span last season. On the other end, opponents are hitting 60-of-78 free throws for 76.9 percent so far, after making 85-of-113 for 75.2 percent last season.

In other words, the Utes already have made nine more free throws through five games than they attempted last season, while opponents have attempted seven fewer than they made. "It's the difference in our season," Boylen said.

If there was one thing the Utes did to regain control after halftime of their 71-58 victory at Missouri State last night, it was rebound.

After getting handled on the glass during the first half and trailing by one point at the half -- "they were tougher than us," coach Jim Boylen said -- the Utes returned to the floor ferociously determined. They grabbed all nine available rebounds -- MSU did not get a single one, for the first eight minutes of the half -- and set the tone for another dominant second half en route to their fourth straight victory.

"We keyed on blocking out," forward Carlon Brown said. "Everybody was grabbing them -- Shaun was grabbing them, Luke was grabbing them, Kim was grabbing them and some of the guards were grabbing them. So as long as we all come on the defensive end ... we should be able to win a lot of rebound games."

Already, the Utes have done that.

They have lost the rebounding edge only once -- and only by one rebound, in an 83-72 victory over Ole Miss last week at the Glenn Wilkes Classic.

And against the Bears, everybody got into the act.

While center Luke Nevill was having something of an off game while getting caught up in the referees' calls, he still grabbed five boards, while forward Shaun Green and Brown each had six and forward Kim Tillie had seven after grabbing a grand total of one in two games after a 10-board effort against Wisconsin-Green Bay.

"Kim was one of the guys," Nevill said, admiringly. "He crashed the boards so hard. He played so tough those first few minutes ... and that really got us pushed in the right direction."

Things are really looking up for the Utes, now.

Not only did they put the hammer down in the second half -- again -- to beat Missouri State tonight 71-58 in their first true road game, but doing so put them in a realistic position to build their winning streak to seven games before traveling to Oklahoma for what figures to be the toughest test of their non-conference schedule.

Next up is Oregon at home on Wednesday night, and that might not be as difficult a match-up as it once appeared, considering the Ducks are just 3-3 so far. On the other hand, two of those losses came against North Carolina and Texas, so they might be better than the record indicates.

At least the Utes are at home, for that one.

The Utes follow that game with a trip to Idaho State -- losers of three straight overtime games, at Hawaii and Boise State, and at home against Long Beach State -- before a home game against Cal and new coach Mike Montgomery. The Bears are 5-0, but with only one quality win at UNLV. Otherwise, the Golden Bears have beaten only Pacific, San Francisco, Texas-Pan American and North Carolina A&T -- all at home -- suggesting they might not be much better than last season, when the Utes beat them on the road.

It all adds up to a real opportunity for the Utes, who seem to be coming together well and finding ways to win. Second halves have been particularly important so far -- they have dominated during their four-game winning streak -- and the Utes made their move against Missouri State with center Luke Nevill on the bench.

So are we getting ahead of ourselves?

Of course we are ... but just imagine. The Utes haven't enjoyed a start as good as 7-1 since winning their first 18 games during the Final Four season more than a decade ago.

It won't be the last time you hear it this season -- an opponent in awe of senior center Luke Nevill.

"He's big and he's skilled," Missouri State coach Cuonzo Martin said, admiringly.

Martin will sic his Bears on Nevill and the Utes tonight, hoping to "make them work" on both ends of the floor so they can build on a home victory over Arkansas last weekend that christened the new JQH Arena on campus. Meanwhile, the Utes have won three straight thanks in part to their newfound depth, coach Jim Boylen said.

"Our depth has showed," he said.

The Utes are 5 1/2-point favorites tonight, which makes sense, considering the Bears were picked to finish last in the Missouri Valley Conference. The game figures to be something of a preview of the new annual "challenge" between the MVC and the Mountain West that starts next season -- though the Utes are hoping to land a home game to kick that off.

Oh, and by the way ... the mtn. network was planning to televise this game, until the production company here in Missouri whose broadcast feed it planned to use decided to cancel.

While the Utes traveled and prepared to spend Thanksgiving in Springfield awaiting their game at Missouri State on Friday, fans of the MSU Bears were extolling the virtues of their new $67 million JQH Arena.

And the Bears themselves were celebrating a big victory.

Under first-year coach Cuonzo Martin, the 2-1 Bears are coming off a 62-57 victory over Arkansas in the inaugural game at the new arena last weekend. A former assistant at Purdue -- a Big Ten Conference rival to coach Jim Boylen, when Boylen was an assistant at Michigan State -- Martin took over after MSU fired Barry Hinson, the coach who brought the Bears to the Huntsman Center last season and left with a 66-54 loss that contributed to a 17-16 finish.

The Bears were picked to finish last in the Missouri Valley Conference this season, but a writer who covers them isn’t having it. “The league is not strong and the Bears are simply better,” he wrote, “especially after they get more healthy, than those around the league could have envisioned.”

The Bears lost their season-opener at Auburn, but beat Central Michigan on the road before beating the Razorbacks.

Had a chance to speak with Ken Pomeroy, the statistics guru whose ranking have the Utes at No. 1 in the nation, and he was tremendously good-natured about his work.

Pomeroy acknowledged that it's far too early for his rankings -- based on mathematical formulas -- to feature the kind of predictive power that allowed the Wall Street Journal to correctly forecast the entire Final Four last season.

But after a few more weeks, once more teams have played more games, Pomeroy expects the rankings to reflect reality a lot more accurately.

"When you only have three games worth of data, and those three games have only three games worth of data, you can end up getting some misleading information," he said.

Still, Pomeroy believes the Utes "should be pretty good" this season, and not just because he's an associate instructor at the university who's hoping to provide coach Jim Boylen some statistical analysis. Pomeroy moved to Salt Lake City only a couple of years ago for his jobs -- he's also a meteorologist at the National Weather Service -- after growing up back East and living for awhile in Montana and Wyoming, so he said he doesn't have any home-grown attachment to the Utes.

But has does appreciate the way Boylen has improved the once-miserable defense, and believes it will make a difference.

"I do think they are kind of a sleeper team in the Mountain West," Pomeroy said. "It wouldn't surprise me at all if Utah snuck in there and won 10 or 11 games in the conference."

For only the second time in his career, center Luke Nevill has been named the Mountain West Conference player of the week.

The 7-foot-2 center averaged 15.3 points and 10 rebounds as the Utes knocked off Wisconsin-Green Bay, Ole Miss and Morgan State in the Glenn Wilkes Classic, and added seven blocks, four assists and three steals. He shot 20-for-29 from the floor, too.

"Luke is competing harder and he's taking coaching very well," coach Jim Boylen said. "He's been very coachable and has embraced his teammates more this year. He has stepped outside of himself and has played more for his team and his teammates than he did last year. He has just recommitted to playing for his teammates, while trying to learn and grow. He's let me coach him more this year and I'm proud of him for doing that."

Only time will tell how valuable the last three victories will turn out to be for the Utes. But so far, they seem to be worth quite a bit.

Though it's obviously still early, the Utes are ranked third in the Rating Percentage Index, according to RealRPI.com, as well as 39th in the Sagarin Ratings that appear in the USA Today newspaper.

It certainly helps that games against Division II teams -- such as the one that defeated the Utes in the opener -- are not counted in the calculations, but still, it's an awfully encouraging start.

It's starting to look like the Utes might just be for real this season.

Never mind that season-opening loss to Division II Southwest Baptist. They just won their third straight game over a team expected to contend for an NCAA Tournament berth this season, utterly smothering Morgan State 66-37 in the final game of the Glenn Wilkes Classic at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Fla.

"We do what we do," coach Jim Boylen said, "which is guard and play together."

Certainly looked like it -- again -- against the Bears.

The Utes held them to 28 percent shooting and 0-for-10 from three-point range, and fewer points than any team since fellow Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference member Coppin State in a game of the same score nearly four years ago. Morgan State's top two scorers, guard Reggie Holmes and forward Marquise Kately, combined to score just five points on 2-for-14 shooting.

"That was our game plan, from the beginning of the season, to just be dominant defensively," forward Shaun Green said.

Now, it might be that Morgan State helped the Utes by missing what open shots it was able to create, in addition to the ones the Utes contested. It was a pretty poor shooting team, to begin with, having hit just 40 percent in its first four games.

But still, the Utes have now shown they can win with defense, long-range shooting, and by relying on center Luke Nevill inside. It's a good combination that bodes well for the future.

The Utes are expecting another good challenge from Morgan State today in the Glenn Wilkes Classic, but they're not the only ones.

The Bears are wary, too.

You know how we know? Naturally, from the coach's blog. Coach Todd Bozeman -- yes, the same guy who was banished from the NCAA for eight years for paying one of his players at Cal -- keeps his Morgan State fans up to date with a remarkably candid blog that describes how he shut off the video of the Utes' victory over Ole Miss last night.

"Utah has a 7-2 center and big time shooters on the perimeter," he wrote. "In other words ... a huge challenge looms folks!"

For the record, the Bears are 2-2 after a 72-67 victory over Marshall on Friday, and their two losses -- to LaSalle and Manhattan -- have come by a total of four points.

And while the Utes have averaged about 80 points per game, the Bears are averaging just 65 (and allowing only 63). Shooting guard Reggie Holmes is the leading scorer with 12.3 points per game, while small forward Marquise Kately averages 10.8 points and 6.3 rebounds. The Bears shoot only 40 percent from the field, though, and 60.5 percent from the line.

Coach Andy Kennedy knew the Utes were a pretty good shooting team last season. But still, from his perspective, things grew a little ridiculous in his Ole Miss team's 83-72 loss to the Utes at the Glenn Wilkes Classic on Friday night.

"Jordan Cyphers, he plays four minutes all year," Kennedy said, "and against us, he makes four threes. Sometimes that happens."

Which is exactly what Cyphers was thinking.

Though the freshman guard scarcely had been off the bench for the Utes in the first two games, he came up huge against the Rebels, scoring 12 points -- all on three-pointers -- in 16 minutes that he acknowledged he did not expect.

"But I always stay ready on the bench," he said, "because you never know."

While the Utes hit 12 three-pointers in all and shot 53.4 percent for the game, Cyphers played a key role early in the second half, burying three straight three-pointers after the Rebels had snuck back within 10 points. It's precisely what coach Jim Boylen wanted to see from the Kansas sharpshooter.

"That's what Jordan can do," coach Jim Boylen said. "That's why he was recruited. I said, when I recruited him, 'We can use your shooting right now.' He needs to replace Johnnie Bryant, and I thought ... he looked like that guy -- only five inches bigger, which is nice for us."

Coach Jim Boylen doesn't want to get ahead of himself. The season is only three games old, and the Ole Miss team that his Utes were playing at the Glenn Wilkes Classic tonight was undersized and without two injured guards -- including its most experienced player.

But still, something about the way the Utes seized control against the Rebels, never wavered and authoritatively closed out an 83-72 victory gave him reason to wonder.

"Maybe we're learning how to win," he said.

Might just be.

The Utes looked fantastic all night against an athletic team from the SEC that had hoped to wear them out with a high-pressure, high-tempo attack. Instead, the Utes not only kept up, but dictated the game, and never looked back after forward Shaun Green scored eight straight points -- he finished with 19, as did guard Lawrence Borha -- to give them a 10-point lead in the first half.

"We talk constantly about doing the basics better," Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said. "And I think Utah beat us at our own game. They just did the basics better. ... Made the extra play, and made the plays they needed to win the game."

Mostly, the Utes did it by bombing away -- showering the Rebels with 12 three-pointers after making only 8-of 29 in the first two games. Kennedy said he knew they were a better shooting team than what the stat sheet had showed, but chose to try to contain center Luke Nevill inside and take their chances on the perimeter.

"We had nobody who could match up with him, physically," Kennedy said. "So we made a conscious choice to really help and try to dig on him and not let him get into a rhythm, and I think we were pretty successful. Unfortunately, Utah did an unbelievable job with their spacing and their ball movement and they had guy after guy after guy step up and knock down shots."

Kennedy acknowledged he didn't know Green was such a hot shooter -- not until watching him bury 7-of-10 shots, including 5-of-7 from three-point range. Freshman guard Jordan Cyphers buried four threes himself -- including three in a row, at one point in the second half -- to finish with 12 points, while guard Tyler Kepkay added 13 points.

Even Nevill was solid.

Though he scored only 10 points, he grabbed 10 rebounds, handed out three assists, made two steals and blocked a shot. He frequently altered shots that his teammates wound up rebounding, passed deftly out of double-teams and played a season-high 37 minutes — a number surpassed only three times in his career.

So, we joked that the Glenn Wilkes Classic couldn't possibly be as "low-profile" as the San Juan Shootout in Puerto Rico a couple of years ago, and that maybe we shouldn't make fun of Division II participant Rollins College, considering the Utes lost to a Division II team themselves just last week.

Well, we were right on both counts -- albeit just barely.

Not only is Rollins kicking the bejesus out of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the team the Utes beat at home the other day, in the earlier game, but it's doing so in front of precisely 116 fans in the bleachers at the Ocean Center here in Daytona Beach, Fla. That just barely outpaces the attendance at the San Juan Shootout, where typically fewer than 100 fans attended the games. Not exactly the 2K Sports Classic in Madison Square Garden, huh?

Let the legend begin.

While the Utes are preparing for their game tonight against Ole Miss at the Glenn Wilkes Classic -- center Luke Nevill is off to the best start of his college career -- one of their latest recruits is enjoying the lingering buzz from the greatest performance of his life.

Shooting guard Marshall Henderson of L.D. Bell High School in Texas, who just signed a letter-of-intent to join the Utes next season, erupted for 50 points in a 102-77 victory over Fort Worth Southwest on Tuesday.

Evidently, Henderson scored 25 of his points in the fourth quarter -- on the road, by the way -- and made six three-pointers. No wonder teams such as Gonzaga, Stanford and Bradley tried to lure him.

Meanwhile, the Ole Miss Rebels are hoping to find an answer to the season-ending injury suffered by junior guard Eniel Polynice. One option, coach Andy Kennedy said, is to go small against the Utes looming lineup.

So far, the Utes have made the most of their trip to sunny Daytona Beach, Fla.

Not only did they enjoy some free time on the beach today, in advance of their game against Ole Miss in the Glenn Wilkes Classic on Friday, but they visited the nearby Daytona 500 Experience, where they toured the famous speedway that hosts the Daytona 500 stock-car race, rode in pace cars and competed in a pit-stop simulation.

"It's bigger than I imagined," guard Lawrence Borha said. "Seeing it on TV, it doesn't look this big."

The Utes broke into three groups of five for the pit-stop challenge, with the winning team clocking under 20 seconds. Then, they took rides around the course. "One-hundred-eighty miles-per-hour around this track, I couldn't imagine doing that," Borha said. "One-hundred-and-twenty-five miles-per-hour was fast enough for me."

Here's a quick look at the upcoming opponents for the Utes in the Glenn Wilkes Classic in Daytona Beach, Fla.

The Utes will play Mississippi on Friday night, and the Rebels are rebuilding the frontcourt but coping with injuries, notably to swingman Eniel Polynice.

Much like the Utes, the Rebels struggled in their opener -- but still managed to beat a Division I team -- and hope to eventually display a run-and-gun offense following last season's 24-11 campaign that ended in the National Invitation Tournament.

Meanwhile, Morgan State is coming off a 22-11 season that included the regular-season Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference championship, but not a trip to the NCAA Tournament, after the Bears lost to Coppin State in their conference tournament and wound up in the NIT.

Disgraced former Cal coach Todd Bozeman is in charge, and he's trying to replace three key starters from last season, including the point guard. The Utes will play the Bears on Saturday, with the Bears coming off a disappointing loss at Manhattan last night.

The Utes already caught one break when one of UW-Green Bay's best players missed the game last night. Now, it will catch another when it plays Mississippi at the Glenn Wilkes Classic on Friday.

Junior forward Eniel Polynice had knee surgery Tuesday -- the same day as UW-Green Bay’s Ryan Tillema, coincidentally -- and will miss the rest of the season. The Rebels already were without guard Trevor Gaskins, who also suffered a season-ending knee injury.

The injuries leave the Rebels with just five players -- all but one, underclassmen -- to play their three perimeter positions.

Polynice averaged 10.7 points last season and was “unquestionably our best perimeter defender," coach Andy Kennedy said. But the Rebels nevertheless improved to 2-0 with an 89-71 victory over South Alabama just hours after learning that was out for the season.

Don't look now, but center Luke Nevill is off to the best start of his career.

The 7-foot-2 senior has dominated the first two games, including the 79-60 victory over Wisconsin-Green Bay last night, which is something he had never done before, regardless of the level of competition. He's averaging 24 points and 14 rebounds with five blocks, and shooting 16-for-25 -- that's 64 percent, up from 53.5 percent last season.

"He's grown as a player," coach Jim Boylen said. "You know I've asked him to rebound, rebound, rebound, and he's doing it. ... He's big, he can run, he can catch. He should be able to rebound, and that's what we talk about him doing."

Nevill averaged 6.7 rebounds last season, but had seven in the first eight minutes or so against the Phoenix. True, he has enjoyed a massive height advantage the past two games, but that hasn't always translated into such strong performances.

"This is my last year, so I have to go out strong," he said. "It just kind of occurred to me. A couple of times, my junior or sophomore year, I just kind of got it into my head that, 'Oh, I have another year to make it up. I have another year to make it up.' Well ... it's is my last year, so every game counts. I'm just going to go at it as hard as I can."

Nevill has not enjoyed three straight 20-point games since early in his sophomore season -- the Utes take on Mississippi on Friday -- and has never enjoyed so much as back-to-back 20-point games with double-digit rebounds in both. Until now.

Now, that was a little better -- both for the Utes in general and forward Carlon Brown, in particular.

Three days after their embarrassing loss to Division II Southwest Baptist, the Utes bounced back tonight with a solid 79-60 victory over Wisconsin-Green Bay at the Huntsman Center. Just about everybody played well and hard, particularly Brown, who had a shaky opener marked by his first-half benching for sloppy play.

Against the Phoenix, though, he was strong from start to finish, scoring 13 points on 6-for-7 shooting and contributing three assists, two rebounds and two steals in a team-high 31 minutes. His highlight-reel jam midway through the second half punctuated the performance, and put the Utes firmly in control -- not that it was his finest effort.

"I went through the legs in high school, in a real game," he said. "It's on YouTube. ... Coming to a Utah game near you."

Coach Jim Boylen also had high praise for guard Luka Drca, who scored a career-high 16 points -- center Luke Nevill was strong again, dominating the smaller Phoenix with 20 points and 14 rebounds -- after the guard line played poorly against Southwest Baptist.

"I'm proud of them," Boylen said. "Carlon Brown was who Carlon Brown should be. Luka Drca is an intelligent, tough kid, and I thought they were both who they should be."

That decision to use guard Tyler Kepkay and forward Shaun Green as substitutes to gain more offensive firepower off the bench didn't really work, though (not that it needed to, in this game). Together, they shot 1-for-11 and scored just six points with four rebounds.

Just got word that the Utes will be taking on a short-handed UW-Green Bay team tonight.

The Phoenix's Ryan Tillema, a 6-foot-8 senior guard who averaged 12.5 points and shot 44.5 percent from three-point range last season, is not with the team after having knee surgery on Tuesday.

For the record, tonight's game is part of the second annual Glenn Wilkes Classic -- not really a tournament, but a collection of games both at campus sites and at the Ocean Center arena in Daytona Beach, Fla.

After the Utes play UW-Green Bay tonight at the Huntsman Center, they will travel to Florida to meet Mississippi on Friday and Morgan State on Saturday.

It will be interesting to see just how good this event turns out to be, considering some of the teams that are involved -- West Virginia Tech and something called Rollins College, among them -- following much offseason juggling that left the Utes with just two games in Florida instead of the three they had hoped to play.

(Maybe I shouldn't make fun of Rollins; they're Division II just like Southwest Baptist.)

For example, two of the campus-site games -- the Utes, and West Virginia Tech at Marshall -- will be played before the teams gather in Florida, but Morgan State won't play at Mississippi until the following weekend. The tournament also will feature two games on Sunday -- UW-Green Bay vs. Morgan State and Marshall vs. Mississippi -- after the Utes have departed.

Hmmm.

Whatever the case, though, the event probably can't be as, um ... "low-profile" as the San Juan Shootout in Puerto Rico, where the Utes played a couple of years ago. That was held in a stodgy, old gymnasium, with attendance topping 100 only when the vastly overmatched local team participated. I know, because we counted.

Nobody's getting benched. Coach Jim Boylen isn't shuffling the lineup, he said, or making any drastic changes after an embarrassing season-opening loss to a Division II team.

The Utes are just trying to get better against UW-Green Bay tonight.

"We need to get better at everything we do," Boylen said. "We need to understand time, score and situation better. We need to pick each other up better, and we need to communicate better."

Intriguingly, Boylen said he would "rather not say" whether there was anything he saw on the game film that altered his view of the loss to Southwest Baptist, and mocked the notion that he was trying to avoid being overly hard on his players.

"Were you at practice yesterday?" he asked a reporter. "Were you in the film session, the other day?"

Still, he acknowledged that his team's guard play was "not real good," and that he was particularly disappointed in the three-pointers the Utes allowed in transition. "For the most part," though, he said Southwest Baptist simply made shots over the Utes.

"I'm disappointed we lost, but I'm not discouraged on where we're going," he said. "I don't know how many teams in the country are going to win, when you give up 16 made threes."

The Utes are expecting an up-tempo UW-Green Bay team to challenge them tonight, Boylen and his players said, and expect to be ready for an experienced team that has plenty of offensive talent.

"It's a matter of us playing hard," forward Carlon Brown said. "And if we play hard, we can get the job done, and we're all looking forward to bouncing back."

The Utes are coming off one of their most embarrassing home defeats, but don't expect them to have an easy time getting back on track.

The Wisconsin-Green Bay Phoenix who visit the Huntsman Center on Tuesday night are a veteran team that returns all five starters, just like the Utes. In fact, they have 90 percent of their scoring back after going 15-15 last season in the Horizon League.

"This is really our most talented team and our deepest team," coach Tod Kowalczyk said. "I think right now we have seven starters."

That could be bad news for the Utes, who played like they had only about three in an 80-79 loss to Division II Southwest Baptist last weekend.

The Phoenix are undersized, with nobody taller than 6-foot-9, but also versatile -- senior forward Mike Schachtner finished in the top 10 in the Horizon League in field-goal, three-point and free-throw shooting percentage last season, and senior Ryan Tillema is a 6-8 shooting guard.

Talk about an uninspiring way to open the season.

The Utes lost to a Division II team today, falling 80-79 to Southwest Baptist of Missouri at the Huntsman Center when they couldn't manufacture a game-winning shot in the final 10 seconds after the Bearcats missed the front-end of a one-and-one opportunity.

Harbinger of things to come?

Finishing close games was a problem for the Utes last season, as everybody knows, and this was not an example to inspire much confidence.

Though the Utes were out of timeouts and not able to set anything up after Tomas Brock missed his free throw, guard Lawrence Borha didn't create the greatest shot in traffic at the other end -- and coach Jim Boylen later said that guard Tyler Kepkay was wide open, implying that Borha should have kicked it out for a better look.

Still, Boylen was not ready to hammer his team over its shortcomings. After all, the Bearcats buried 16 three-pointers, though certainly not all of them were contested.

"Give them credit," Boylen said. "I'd like to sit here and rip us -- 'we didn't do this, didn't do that.' I thought we did some good things. We didn't make enough plays to win."

Not many of the Utes played especially well, either.

Center Luke Nevill had 28 points and 14 rebounds, but he also had six of the team's 11 missed free throws that "killed us." Forward Kim Tillie was disastrous offensively, missing all six shots he took -- though he did grab seven rebounds -- and forward Carlon Brown played only 13 minutes after sitting the bench most of the first half as punishment for some careless play.

Forward Shaun Green scored 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds, and Borha was the only other Ute in double-figures with 10 points.

Most disturbingly to Boylen, though, is the fact that his supposedly defensive-minded team gave up 64 shots and 80 points to an undersized team that played the last nine minutes without its best player -- center Matt Rogers, who fouled out.

"I didn't like that at all," he said.

One of coach Jim Boylen's latest recruits, junior-college forward Matt Read, has a particularly interesting history.

He chose the Utes over their legendary former coach.

Yes, coach Rick Majerus tried to land Read out of Collin County Community College in Texas for his St. Louis Billikens -- perhaps indication enough that Read is an exceptional player. And while Read said he loved Majerus enough to make the Billikens one of his three finalists, along with Michigan, he just felt the Utes were a better fit.

"Both programs were great for me," he said. “I didn't think I could go wrong with either one. At the end of the day, I went on this visit to Utah and I just got a feeling that this is where I needed to be. I was just really excited about being there.

"It just came down to an all-around better fit," he added, "not any big time negatives at St. Louis. I just felt like more positives at Utah."

Indeed, Read emphasized that Majerus was very respectful of his former team during the recruiting process, and that nobody with the Billikens practiced "negative recruiting."

"Majerus was really disappointed," Read said, "but he thought Utah was a great decision for me."

The 6-foot-9 Read described himself as a "mismatch problem," because he can both face up in the post, step out and hit the three-pointer and loves to pass. He played his freshman season at Texas-Arlington before deciding it wasn't the right fit and transferring to Collin County.

During the recruiting process, Read said he made a long list of criteria he wanted his future school to meet, and one of them -- in addition to relationships with the coaches, coaching style and the chance to play -- was the opportunity to win in the two years of eligibility he will have remaining.

"I really felt like opportunity to win in two years was the best" at Utah, he said. "I really just feel like it's just going to keep going uphill from here."

Coach Jim Boylen announced today that his four seniors -- center Luke Nevill, guards Lawrence Borha and Tyler Kepkay and forward Shaun Green -- will act as team captains this season, while also saying it would be hard to not describe his upcoming recruiting class as "the best recruiting class in the last 10 years."

"This tells me we're on the right track," he said.

The Utes announced the signing of five new players for next season, and Boylen particularly gushed about 6-foot-7 forward Shawn Glover of Cedar Hills High School in Texas, calling him "the biggest piece since I've been here."

Glover averaged 18.1 points as a junior at Cedar Hills last season, and was named the team's most valuable player. Among the other signees, guard Marshall Henderson is a heralded three-pointer shooter who holds the school-record at L.D. Bell High School in Texas -- he averaged 24 points as a junior -- and has made more than 300 three-pointers in three seasons.

Center Jeremy Olsen is a 6-11 forward at Collins Hill High School near Atlanta, where he averaged 15.1 points and 10.2 rebounds as a junior, while two junior-college transfers will be juniors for the Utes next season. Swingman Jay Watkins of the College of Southern Idaho -- the team assistant coach Barret Peery used to coach -- is leading his undefeated team by averaging 22 points per game, while 6-9 forward Matt Read is averaging 11.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 3.0 assists for Collin County Community College in Texas.

"Credit to this class should really go to the assistant coaches, three guys I think are head coach quality," Boylen said, referring to Peery, Jeff Smith and Stan Johnson. "It showed in recruiting. The staff did a heck of a job getting us into places we hadn't been before."

The Utes did not sign any Utah players, and Boylen said "we have to keep working on it," after losing a couple of local recruits, most notably Lone Peak's Tyler Haws and Pleasant Grove's C.J. Wilcox. But the coach also said "we have to be a national recruiter." Three of the new recruits are from Texas, and the Utes said Glover and Henderson are ranked among the top 12 recruits in that state.

Boylen also confirmed what was widely expected, that freshmen Josh Sharp, Jason Washburn and Chris Hines will redshirt this season. Sharp is expected to leave next year on an LDS Church mission, while Hines is just coming back from a lingering ankle sprain and Washburn needs time to put on some weight and adjust to the college game.

The early-signing period for basketball opened yesterday, and the Utes are expected to announce the signing of their five incoming recruits for the 2009 class to binding letters-of-intent sometime this morning.

Coach Jim Boylen plans to discuss the players for the first time, too, after rules had forbid him from talking about them until they signed to join his team.

The Utes plan to add three high school players and two junior-college transfers, three of them from Texas and none from Utah. Forwards Matt Read of Collins Community College in Texas and Joseph Watkins of the College of Southern Idaho are the juco transfers -- Read is 6-foot-9, and Watkins 6-7 -- while 6-2 guard Marshall Henderson of L.D. Bell High School and 6-6 forward Shawn Glover of Cedar Hill High School comprise the Texas preps, along with 6-10 forward Jeremy Olsen of Collins Hill High School near Atlanta.

Center David Foster also is expected to return to the team with this class, having left the Utes after the 2006-07 season to serve a two-year LDS Church mission.

As we've mentioned before, signing five new players would technically give the Utes one player too many next season, but Boylen has decided to "oversign" in case of an academic casualty or other unexpected departure.

You saw a hint of it during the exhibition game, but now coach Jim Boylen has made it certain -- senior guard Tyler Kepkay and senior forward Shaun Green will be coming off the bench for the Utes to start the season.

Boylen said the move is designed to give the Utes more defensive athleticism to start games -- junior guard Luka Drca will start instead of Kepkay at the point, with junior forward Kim Tilie in place of Green -- as well as more offensive firepower off the bench later. Limiting Green to fewer minutes also figures to keep him from wearing down as the felt he did last season, when he played a team-high 1,024 minutes.

"It's just basically going to keep me from playing so many minutes," he said, "so that I'm more fresh at the end of the games so I can hit big shots down the stretch."

That certainly would be welcome, after the Utes lost six games last season either in overtime or by six points or less.

Neither player said the move required much convincing. Both had watched former guard Johnnie Bryant have the best season of his career last season by making a similar sacrificial switch, and like Bryant, both were willing to do whatever Boylen asked. Kepkay already had played the last seven games of last season off the bench, after losing his starting job amid a tough transition from junior college.

"It's a statement to the team that these guys want to win," Boylen said. "It's not about starting. It's about winning and doing what's right for the team."

Chances are, you don't know much about Southwest Baptist, the Division II team (from Bolivar, Mo.) that will visit the Utes for the season-opener on Saturday.

So here's a little something.

The Bearcats lost an exhibition game at Southern Illinois 87-79 last weekend. But that hardly tells the whole story. The Bearcats trailed by 18 points with 1:38 remaining -- only to race off on a 14-0 run in 69 seconds that cut the lead to four, before finally succumbing.

And the Bearcats have a talented big man who should match up well with Utah's Luke Nevill.

The 6-foot-11 Matt Rogers is a preseason Division II All-American who averaged 14.9 points, 7.8 rebounds and 4.5 blocks per game last season -- kid even hit 16 of 42 from three-point range -- and went off for 19 points and 18 boards against Southern Illinois.

Southwest Baptist was ranked No. 12 in the preseason Division II poll, despite losing last season's leading scorer, one spot below Grand Valley State, which the Utes defeated 59-44 in an exhibition last weekend.

Looks like the Utes didn't have any trouble in their exhibition today.

Sorry I wasn't there -- blame Real Salt Lake -- but senior point guard Tyler Kepkay scored 26 points off the bench in a 59-44 victory over Division II Grand Valley State at the Huntsman Center, suggesting that backing up junior Luka Drca might be a pretty good idea.

Kepkway was 8-for-14 shooting, including 5-of-7 from three-point range. Meanwhile, forward Shaun Green had eight rebounds and five steals, and center Luke Nevill had three blocks to accompany his eight boards.

The Utes shot only 38.6 percent, but hit 20 of 23 free throws and forced 17 turnovers. They also held the Lakers without a basket for the first nine minutes en route to a 10-point halftime lead.

The Utes play their only preseason exhibition game against Grand Valley State today at the Huntsman Center, where coach Jim Boylen will work on getting a better idea of the rotation he will take into the regular season.

Judging by the workouts, though, it appears he's leaning toward using junior Luka Drca as his starting point guard -- a move that would put senior Tyler Kepkay into a bench role, similar to the one departed Johnnie Bryant played last season.

Drca has been running the first team in practice, alongside guard Lawrence Borha, forwards Carlon Brown and Shaun Green and center Luke Nevill. The Utes expect freshman Jace Tavita to earn some minutes at the point, too, though Drca had assumed the primary role over the second half of last season as Kepkay struggled.

Coach Jim Boylen is entertaining a couple of highly regarded recruits who are making unofficial campus visits this weekend. That means they're paying their own way -- seemingly a pretty good indication of their level of interest.

Shooting guards Allen Crabbe of Price High School near Los Angeles and Alex Dragicevich of Glenbrook North High School near Chicago are in town -- both are high school juniors, and members of the 2010 recruiting class -- with Crabbe having arrived in time to watch practice and attend the football game against TCU last night.

Crabbe is regarded as one of the best wing players in the West, and already has attracted lots of interest from the Pac-10 Conference. Dragicevich, meanwhile, is regarded as one of the Chicagoland area's top prospects, but still seems to be flying under the radar a bit nationally.

The Utes have received some good news, with injured guard Chris Hines finally cleared to return to practice after missing weeks with a sprained ankle that refused to heal.

It still seems unlikely that the freshman will make an impact in his first year, but coach Jim Boylen was happy to have him back on the floor rather than the stationary bicycle.

Speaking of Boylen, he said he was mostly pleased with the way the Utes played in their scrimmage at Colorado last weekend, but that their defense wasn't as good as he'd hoped it would be. He acknowledged, though, that with five freshmen, that might be expected at this early point in the season.

The Utes play their only official exhibition game in just two days when Division II Grand Valley State visits the Huntsman Center.

Sound familiar?

It should. Grand Valley State is the team that stunned coach Tom Izzo and mighty Michigan State in an exhibition game to start last season, and wound up going 36-1 -- with the only loss to Winona State in the Elite Eight round of the Division II national tournament.

But the Lakers don't appear quite as equipped to pull off a similar shocker against the Utes.

Coach Ric Wesley lost his two best players off last season's team -- forward Callistus Ezuikwu and Jason Jamerson, who averaged 30.3 points and 13.0 rebounds between them -- as well as three of the four players who started every game, and another who started 32 times.

The top returning player appears to be 6-foot-5 swingman Pete Trammell, who averaged 10.2 points for the Lakers last season, though senior guard Jerret Smith played 65 games at Michigan before transferring. The Lakers also have two 6-10 centers -- sophomore Anthony Ianni and freshman Corey Jones -- who could give Utah's Luke Nevill a reasonable challenge.