The Utah basketball team left little doubt as to who the best team in the Western Athletic Conference is this season. Following up on their regular-season title, the Utes captured their first-ever WAC tournament title with comfortable 67-54 victory over Hawaii Saturday night.
With chants of "Sweep the WAC" emanating from the band and a fan in the Ute section waving a broom in the air, the Utes followed up on the Utah women's victory earlier in the day, giving Utah a sweep of both WAC basketball titles at The Pit. It's the first time in WAC history that teams from the same school have captured the men's and women's titles the same year.Keith Van Horn, who was named most valuable player, led the Ute scoring with 24 points, while Brandon Jessie added 13 points and 8 rebounds. Jessie, who scored 28 the night before, joined Van Horn on the all-tournament team.
Utah coach Rick Majerus, a vocal opponent of conference tournaments in general, was happy to survive the three-day tourney and add three more victories this weekend, making the Utes the second-winningest team in school history at 27-5."I'm glad we won, but I'm not a big fan of these tournaments," said Majerus. "But what an accomplishment this was for the kids to win this."
Utah became the fourth school in the 12-year history of the WAC tourney to win both the regular-season and conference championships the same season.
"I think the conference championship meant the most because it was an 18-game struggle with two overtime wins," said Van Horn. The Utes didn't even bother cutting down the nets after this one because they had already done it a week earlier after the win over BYU at the Huntsman Center.
Saturday's victory was the Utes 10th in a row and 14th in their last 15 games. They'll go into next week's NCAA tourney as one of the hottest teams in the country.
After defeating New Mexico a night earlier by 36 points and silencing a large crowd at The Pit, the Utes came out a little sluggish for Saturday's game in front of about half as many fans as the previous night.
The Utes played a listless first half, committing nine turnovers and shooting just 38 percent from the field.
"We came out a little slow tonight because I think we were a little tired from yesterday," said Jessie.
"We kind of came in expecting to win and had our eyes opened when Hawaii didn't lay down and die," said Mark Rydalch, playing for the third straight night on his bad knee.
The Utes didn't panic despite being tied at halftime 32-32 and came out quickly in the second half, scoring nine straight points. The Rainbows got within five at 41-36 when Hawaii's Justice Sueing struck again.
Sueing, who was suspended for a game after two vicious hits on Utah players in Honolulu last month, was caught in the act this time, putting an intentional elbow to the face of Van Horn while Hawaii had the ball.
The Utes took advantage of the flagrant foul as Van Horn sank both foul shots and then buried a jumper after the Utes got possession. Suddenly the Utes were up by nine points and soon they extended it to 15 at 56-41 when Van Horn hit another jumper.
Afterward, Hawaii coach Riley Wallace had nothing but praise for Utah.
"They're a heck of a ballclub and I think they can carry that crown a long way," he said. "They deserved to win. It's a great ballclub, one of the best I've played against in my eight years in the WAC."
Hawaii was led by center Tony Maroney, who was the only Rainbow player to finish in double figures with 13 points. The Rainbows managed just 34 percent shooting from the field and 67 from the foul line.
The Ute players and coaches flew back to Salt Lake this morning and will meet later at Majerus' house - the University Park Hotel - to find out their fate in the NCAA tournament. The announcement of the NCAA pairings will be at 4:30 p.m. on CBS.
"I think we deserve a decent seed, but it's just so difficult," said Majerus. "There are certainly some teams we don't want to go up against, but I also think there are some teams that don't want to play us."
UTE NOTES: Joining Van Horn and Jessie on the all-WAC tournament team were Colorado State's Delmonte Madison and Joe Vogel and Hawaii's Maroney . . . . . As punishment for making obscene gestures to the crowd in each of the first two games, Hawaii's John Molle was forced to make a public apology to the crowd before the start of Saturday's game . . . Utah's win undoubtedly made BYU happy because now the Cougars should get the second spot from the WAC in the NCAAs . . . Rydalch said Majerus wanted him not to dress for the game in order not to take a chance on hurting his knee. But after several phone calls to various people around the country, Rydalch was allowed to play. He scored 5 points and had 4 assists in 20 minutes of action and afterward Majerus said, "We couldn't have won without him."