As expected, Utah defeated designated patsy Adams State by a large margin Saturday night at the Huntsman Center. The final score was 95-63, raising Utah's record to 5-2 or 3-2 against Division I competition.

At least there were a few unexpecteds that made it interesting for the 10,000 or so fans (paid attendance 13,461) who took off a holiday-season Saturday night to sit through this one.Who would have thought it would take the Utes until the second half to finally break away from the 1-5 NAIA school that was playing without its top scorer?

Or who could have predicted Utah's Mark Rydalch, who has been out seven months with a severe knee injury, would see 14 minutes of action and sink his first two shots, both from 3-point range?

And what about the near-brawl late in the second half that had Rick Majerus yelling at the opposing bench - again - with several tempers on both sides flaring?

At least the Utes got the win they scheduled for the end of test week at the university.

"The main thing was to be able to beat a team and not practice and do well in exams," said Majerus. "We played like we did in practice, like we were in exams week."

The Utes did seem a step slow at times, particularly in the early going, when the Indians took leads of 16-12 and 18-15 before the Utes came alive.

An 18-3 run gave the Utes a 33-21 lead as Majerus substituted freely, but at halftime the margin was just 14 at 44-29.

Rydalch, who wasn't expected back until January, made his first appearance at the 13:35 of the first half to a standing ovation, and sank a 3-pointer less than a minute later.

Afterward Rydalch said, "It's nice to get back in there and get up and down the floor. I still have a long way to go, but I felt better than I thought I would."

The Ute lead gradually got larger until and most of the fans who didn't make an early move to the parking lot were dozing off when something woke them up at the 6:32 mark with Utah leading 71-47.

Brandon Jessie went up for a shot and was fouled by the Indians' Jason Mata, who started to go after Jessie. Utah's Ben Melmeth came in to intervene when Mata turned and swung at Melmeth, who started to retaliate before things settled down.

Mata was kicked out of the game, which reportedly earns him a two-game suspension from his coach, Terry Layton.

"I tried to break it up and he took a swing at me," said Melmeth.

"There's not a place for that," said Majerus. "It was despicable."

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After an almost-10-minute delay the action resumed and Utah ran off eight straight points and the last four minutes, the Utes used three walk-ons, plus forgotten men Ma Jian and Doug Chapman, who both started last year.

Keith Van Horn led the Ute scoring with 18 points, while Jimmy Carroll finished with 17, breaking out of his shooting slump with 5-of-9 from 3-point range. Freshman Alex Jensen had his second straight double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds.

The Utes dominated all the stats, outrebounding their opponent 49 to 23 and outshooting them 48 to 41 percent.

Next up for Utah is another creampuff, Chicago State, Tuesday night at the Huntsman Center. Then on Friday the Utes head up to Logan for a tough in-state battle with Utah State.

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