MIAMI — Perhaps the worst thing that could have happened to the Utah basketball team in its NCAA first-round game against Arizona was for center Luke Nevill to get in foul trouble.
It hadn't happened much this year, as Nevill had only fouled out once and had played at least 30 minutes in 19 of the last 20 Ute games.
So what happened Friday night?
Nevill picked up two fouls in the first four minutes and two more early in the second half and ended up either sitting or playing defense like a guy wearing handcuffs, while playing 27 minutes.
"I thought I was playing good 'D,' " said Nevill "I had my hands up in the air. They just happened. Sometimes you play in games and get calls that you may not agree with, but that's the way it goes."
Utah coach Jim Boylen said before the game that he would know early how the game would be officiated, and he didn't like it.
"The first two calls were a little soft," Boylen said. "We don't like games called too tightly. I want a free-flowing game where we can hit people and play. I don't think the referees did a poor job, but you have to adjust to that. I thought they called it pretty tight from the start and that's not the best thing for us."
Nevill got his fourth foul with 14:38 left in the game, and although he came back in for the final 11 minutes, he couldn't play with his usual defensive presence.
TOO HUMID: Coming off their worst 3-point shooting game of the season against San Diego State last week (2-of-15), the Utes weren't much better against Arizona, shooting 8-of-32 from behind the arc.
Boylen defended the number of attempts, seven more than their season high, saying, "I didn't think we took a whole lot of bad shots. Did we take some quick shots? Yeah. We've taken quick shots all year."
When asked about all the Ute basket tries that seemed two roll around and out, Boylen replied, "It's the humidity — we're not used to it. Plus we play with adidas basketballs."
Then after saying he was kidding, Boylen said, "They just didn't go in."
Shaun Green, who is in the record books as one of the best 3-point shooters in Ute history, only made 2-of-11, with several shots going in and out.
"A lot of the balls just didn't bounce our way," he said.
WHERE'S THE FANS?: Back in the 1980s, Utah didn't always fill the Huntsman Center for its NCAA first- and second-round games. Still, there were always 13,000 to 14,000 fans on hand for each of the sessions. However, the last few times Utah hosted the NCAAs, there were sellouts on a regular basis.
Judging by the games on TV so far this week, there are a lot of empty seats are many of the venues, and that is certainly the case here at the American Airlines Arena.
For the first two games of the day, there were a lot of empty seats and, with the draped upper-deck seats, perhaps about 10,000 fans were on hand in the 19,000-seat arena.
For Utah's game with Arizona, the first game of the evening session, there were tons of empty orange and red seats, which gradually became occupied before the game ended. No official attendance figures were given for the Utah-Arizona game, but for the Cleveland State-Wake Forest game, the attendance was listed as 8,990.
ANOTHER 12-5 UPSET: Almost every year since the NCAA Tournament was expanded to 64 teams 25 years ago, there's been an upset in the 5 vs. 12 seed game. Coming into this year, it had happened 31 times, once more than an upset in the 6 vs. 11 game.
Utah was obviously hoping No. 12 Western Kentucky's victory over Illinois got rid of the curse of the 5th seed for this year. But it didn't happen and not only did the Utes lose, but No. 5 Florida State lost to Wisconsin later in the evening. Purdue was the only No. 5 seed to win, edging Northern Iowa by five points.
GAME NOTES: Utah's 20 turnovers tied their season high against UNLV in late February. ... This was Utah's first NCAA appearance since 2005 and first first-round loss since the 58-51 loss to Boston College in 2004.
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