Young Utes' CBI bid beneficial for future

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For the young Utah men's basketball team, which has just one senior who plays meaningful minutes, it's a bonus to be able to still be holding practices and playing real games. Any experience for the young Utes will help for next season.

The Utes (17-14) get an opportunity to play another game tonight in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational, when they take on longtime rival UTEP (19-13) at 7 p.m. (MDT) at the Don Haskins Center in El Paso.

Coach Jim Boylen expects his team will be motivated and hopes it can keep playing for a couple of more weeks. If the Utes win tonight, they'll play Monday against the winner of the Tulsa-Miami (Ohio) game ? and possibly four more games after that, if they keep winning.

However, he knows the Utes will have their hands full tonight with the kind of team the Utes have struggled against this year.

"I'm very concerned about their athleticism, quickness and ability to drive the ball with the Memphis system they use," he said. "One of our weaknesses this year has been our one-on-one defense against the dribble-drive. They also have very good pressure defense and turn people over 17 times a game."

The Miners resemble the UNLV team that the Utes recently lost to twice in a week's time in that they are quick, use pressure defense and will be hard for the Utes to guard.


They have the seventh-leading scorer in the nation in Stefon Jackson, who averages 23.7 points per game. Senior guard Marvin Kilgore averages 12.9 points, while freshman Randy Culpepper averages 12.8 ppg.

Where the Utes might be able to take advantage is inside, where Luke Nevill will have a big height edge. The Miners play three guards and two forwards, Tavaris Watts and Victor Ramalho, who are each 6-foot-9. With 1,277 career points, Nevill needs just three points to surpass Alex Jensen for 20th place on the all-time Utah scoring list.

The Utes also have an edge in the shooting department. They average 48 percent from the field compared to UTEP's 43.6 percent and 40 percent from 3-point range compared to the Miners' 33 percent. At the foul line, the Utes shoot 75.3 percent compared to UTEP's 65.9 percent.

Like Utah's Boylen, UTEP's second-year coach Tony Barbee feels the CBI will be good for his young team. Barbee was an assistant under John Calipari at Memphis before coming to UTEP.

"I'm excited, honored and humbled to be invited to the inaugural College Basketball Invitational," Barbee said in a news release. "It is a tremendous opportunity for our young team to get its first taste of postseason play, as well as an opportunity for our four seniors to extend their collegiate careers. We are looking forward to competing for the title."

 

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UTEP men to play Utah in first round of CBI tourney





UTEP has that special opportunity tonight, an opportunity to extend a season, to play some basketball deeper into March.

The Miners will face one of their oldest rivals, Utah, at 7:05 p.m. tonight in the Don Haskins Center. It is not the NCAA tournament, not the NIT. It is the newest version of postseason hoops hoopla, the College Basketball Invitational. But it is post-season basketball, all the same.

As in any basketball game this late in March, it is win or go home, score the most points or check in your gear.

UTEP comes into tonight's game at 19-13, rides in on the heels of some good performances. The Miners closed the regular season with a win over Houston, then carried that momentum to Memphis for a nice run in the Conference USA Tournament. The Miners easily swept aside SMU in the first round, knocked off Houston again in the quarterfinals and then lost a close overtime decision to Tulsa in the tournament semifinals.

Utah comes here with a 17-14 record, but the Utes also made a nice run in their Mountain West Conference tournament. They defeated New Mexico, the team that edged UTEP 86-85 in the Haskins Center back on Jan. 2, before losing to eventual tournament champion and tournament host UNLV 61-55 in the semifinal round.

This is certainly a good
opportunity for the five freshmen who have seen significant playing time all season for the Miners. It will just be one more step into the world of college basketball.

"We're all excited," said Miner freshman Gabriel McCulley. "We're looking forward to this and we know it will be a good experience -- for the freshmen and as a team overall. But we are not just playing in this tournament. We are trying to win it."

And freshman guard Julyan Stone said, "We're all excited. This means everything we did during the season means something -- because college basketball is all about the post-season. We are happy to be here."

Utah will certainly furnish some formidable opposition -- in the presence of 7-foot-1 junior center Luke Nevill and 6-0 senior guard Johnnie Bryant, just to name two. Nevill averages 15.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game. Bryant averages 13.9 points and shoots 44.8 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.

"They are really a good team," UTEP coach Tony Barbee said. "Nevill is very skilled, unselfish and can use either hand. They spread the floor for their guards and they can all really shoot. They obviously have some size so we will need to do some things to get the tempo up, to get the pace of the game to fit us."

These teams have had so many great battles in the 1970's and '80's and 90's, some simply wonderful hardwood wars. Utah holds a slim overall lead in their 65 previous meetings, 34-31. The last meeting was on the grandest of stages, the opening round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament in Tucson. The 18th-ranked Utes edged the Miners 60-54 in that duel.

But that was then and this is now -- now as in a time for the current players to add their footprints to the history of this rivalry.

"We have watched film, gone over plays," Stone said. "Their big man is really good and their guards are also really good. We can worry about them, study them but we mainly have to worry about ourselves. All our losses this year have been on us."

McCulley smiled and said, "They have a good big man and some really nice guards, guards who can shoot it. We've got to keep their big man from scoring a lot and, most of all, we've got to come out and play our basketball. We've got to play defense, rebound and execute. Those are the three keys -- defense, rebounding and execution. We do those things and we'll be OK."

The winner of tonight's hoop dance will play the winner between Tulsa and Miami of Ohio Monday night.

"The team that has the best crowd tonight between us and Tulsa will get to host the next game on Monday," Barbee said.

And, at this time of year, playing one more game is always something special.