With their best player back at the Fairmont Hotel watching the game on television, the Utah basketball team was supposed to be in serious trouble Thursday night against Canisius in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

The Utes were playing without All-American Keith Van Horn, who has been battling the flu all week and was too ill to even make it to the game. It was the first time they had played without Van Horn since an early-season win over Lewis-Clark. But this was different . . . or was it?Minus Van Horn, all the Utes did was execute the second biggest blowout of Day 1 of the NCAA tournament with a ridiculously easy 72-43 victory at Reunion Arena. Only Kentucky's win over San Jose State earlier in the day was larger, but Utah's may have actually been a worse overall beating.

The Utes dominated every facet of the contest, outrebounding the Golden Griffs 39 to 18, outshooting them 60 to 33 percent from the field and finishing with a 92 to 44 percent edge from the foul line. By the waning minutes of the game, only a couple of thousand fans were still in the arena to see Ute players who never dreamed they'd play in an NCAA game.

Brandon Jessie, getting a chance to step out of the Van Horn's shadow, led the way with 23 points, while seldom-used reserve Will Carlton scored 11 and Andre Miller 10.

"I was real proud of the kids," said Ute coach Rick Majerus. "I liked the way players one through 15 kind of rallied tonight without Keith. We hustled defensively and took them out of the things they like to do."

The Griffs were stymied offensively all night as the Utes would double-team the ball whenever it went inside and not give Canisius many uncontested outside shots.

Only one player, Mickey Frazier, scored in double figures and he did just barely with 10. Center Michael Meeks, a 17-point scorer was just 2 for 9 for seven points and leading scorer Darrell Barley, after sitting out several games with a broken thumb, only managed six points.

The Utes jumped out to a 15-point halftime lead and slowly increased it in the second half, leading by as many as 33 before clearing the bench for the final three minutes. It turned out to be the Utes' largest margin of victory ever in an NCAA tournament game, besting the 25-point win over Northeastern in 1981.

"Utah put on a clinic of how to play basketball," said Canisius coach John Beilein. "They beat us in every aspect of the game. We just got flat-out beat by a terrific basketball team."

Beilein thought his team had a better chance of winning with Van Horn out, but he knew that Utah might be just as strong without him because the Griffs had won the MAAC tournament with their best player, Barley, sitting out with an injury.

"I know our team seemed to be relieved they could look for the first open shot and I think that's how Utah was tonight," said Beilein. "They just executed like crazy. The ran a great motion offense, screened the heck out of us, got some good looks and outrebounded us."

The Ute gameplan was to pound the ball inside to Michael Doleac and Ben Melmeth, who started in place of Van Horn, and to push the ball whenever possible. Doleac made some early baskets inside, which opened the outside for Jessie and Ben Caton, who hit a key 3-pointer in the first half.

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Early in the second half, the Golden Griffs had cut the lead to 13 when Jessie and Mark Rydalch sank back-to-back 3-pointers. Then Carlton made a pair of inside baskets and the lead never got under 20 points.

Miller was the catalyst on the fast break and though he had six turnovers, he came up with four assists, three steals and seven rebounds in addition to his 10 points.

Next up for Utah is Iowa State, which defeated California 74-64 Thursday night.

Majerus said Van Horn would definitely not practice Friday and he doubted that he would play Saturday against the Cyclones. But if the Utes play like they did against Canisius, they may not even need him.

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