The Utah basketball team flew in to town Tuesday night, getting a 48-hour head start on Thursday night's first-round NCAA game with Canisius.
The Utes and the Golden Griffins will tip it off in the final game of four at Reunion Arena Thursday, 30 minutes after the completion of the Iowa State-California game (approximately 8:20 p.m. MST). Earlier in the day, Kentucky meets San Jose State and Wisconsin-Green Bay plays Virginia Tech."Everybody's excited to stay here for five days," said Ute all-American Keith Van Horn, who has been fighting a cold all week. "We're ready to win."
Even though it's been two days since the pairings were announced, the Utes claim they still don't know a whole lot about Canisius.
"We've watched a little bit of film on them and they seem very athletic," said Mark Rydalch. "They've got a couple of really good shooters and I know their two off-guards can really shoot."
"They seem to have a very strong inside-outside game," added Van Horn. "It's tough to focus on either one, so we're going to have to play a strong defensive game."
Ute coach Rick Majerus said he has a "healthy respect for Canisius," but he is concerned about his own team as well. His players have just finished with exams and they haven't gotten as much practice time as Majerus would like.
The Utes are required to hold a public practice from 6 to 7 Wednesday night, but Majerus wants to take his team to a local high school gym for a real practice.
Majerus said his team has been "playing excellent defense and rebounding very well," but he wants to solve some problems with the offense, which struggled at last week's WAC tournament.
UTE NOTES: The Dallas Morning News projects Utah losing in the second round to Iowa State. The paper also lists Iowa State as one of "four teams you don't want to play" along with Princeton, Temple and Wisconsin-Green Bay . . . If the Utes happen to win two games in Dallas, they'll move on to the Midwest Regional at Minneapolis, where they'll likely face Kentucky . . . The closest connection any of the Utes have to Dallas is Rydalch, who served an LDS mission down the road in San Antonio.