A week after beating up on tiny Whitman College, the Utah basketball team will play another small school from northwest of here when it takes on Northwest Nazarene tonight at the Huntsman Center. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.

For the Utes it will be another warm-up game for the season opener Friday night against Texas State, their first official game of the season.

Northwest Nazarene is a university of 1,352 located in Nampa, Idaho; The Crusaders are an NCAA Division II program and a member of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. They are coached by Tim Hills, who has 567 career wins and was named Northwest Nazarene's head coach in May 2005.

The Crusaders lost their first game of the year Friday night, dropping a 78-71 decision to Albertson College in an exhibition game for both teams. Ryan McCarthy, a 6-foot-3 senior guard, led the scoring with 24 points. The top returning player for the Crusaders is Mesut Ademoglu, a 6-10 forward from Turkey, who averaged 15.9 points and 8.7 rebounds a year ago.

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The Utes expect to start the same lineup they used against Whitman with Chris Jackson at center, Bryant Markson and Shaun Green at forwards and Tim Drisdom and Johnnie Bryant at the guardline.

"I've been happy so far," said Ute coach Ray Giacoletti. "We've got a lot of new young guys and they have progressed nicely. We just need to find a way to get better each day."

Next week the Utes take on Rhode Island Tuesday night before going on the the road for the first time to play Weber State Saturday night.


E-mail: sor@desnews.com

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