SALT LAKE CITY — Normally in college basketball, there's not much pride in finishing second, third or fourth place.
Unlike the Olympics, finishing first ends the discussion.
But this is an Olympic year; so maybe they should change things.
Winning the BYU-Utah game should warrant a medal of some sort.
BYU's hopes of tying for its fourth straight conference championship died, Wednesday, when New Mexico beat TCU. But it wasn't a complete bummer for the Cougars; they did obliterate their rival, Utah, 71-51 on the Utes' home court.
With a rivalry this close, every win matters — even when it's not for the championship.
And even if the latest game is as suspenseful as a nap.
The Utes and Cougars played the 250th game in their 101-year history, Wednesday at the Huntsman Center, with BYU pulling off the ridiculously easy victory. That evens the series at 125 wins apiece. Yes, you read that correctly. These two have been playing since the Cenozoic Era, yet still haven't proven which program has the upper hand in the series.
That's not entirely true. BYU definitely has the upper hand at the moment. Wednesday's win gave the Cougars seven wins in the last eight meetings. Yet at one point from 1995-2000, Utah won 12 straight.
BYU won the first eight games of the series.
In between, it's been really, really close.
"I've been in a lot of these games, and I'm glad we finally evened the series," said BYU coach Dave Rose.
The bad news for the local teams was that neither was playing for a championship. BYU will finish second to New Mexico and Utah wasn't within phoning distance of a title. But when you've played 250 games in a series, and still haven't declared a winner, that's reason enough to get fired up. Too bad no one told the Utes. They were history just after the BYU bus pulled up.
Utah missed its first 12 shots of the second half, which helped turn a 12-point deficit to 29.
In some ways, you could have called Wednesday's contest the Letdown Game. For the Utes, it's been frustrating all year. They've been the personification of slightly-below-average. They hold a nondescript 14-15 record overall, 7-8 in conference — a basketball version of a Chevy Citation.
Meanwhile, a little steam went out of the 27-4 Cougars' season, Saturday, when they lost at home to New Mexico. They still could have tied for the championship, had they won out and New Mexico lost to TCU, Wednesday, but that didn't happen.
You wouldn't have known it by the way they played against Utah.
"Great rivalry, great tradition," said BYU's Jackson Emery. "Utah was a great team in the '90s, but we we're doing a great job of creating our own tradition in this decade."
Going in, it seemed it might be a game of high drama. Last time they met, in Provo on January 30, the Cougars won 82-69. But not before a little scuffling occurred. Near game's end, Utah's Marshall Henderson tried to save a loose ball and ended up throwing it high into the chest of Cougar Jonathan Tavernari. Emery got too close and Henderson ended up whacking him in the face with a backhanded swipe.
Henderson came off looking like a hothead, and was suspended a game because of it. Emery went down like he'd been dropped by a blackjack, but replays seemed to show it wasn't a terribly hard a punch.
Everything takes on bigger proportion when these teams meet.
Even after Wednesday's blowout game, there was emotion. Utah coach Jim Boylen took exception to questions by a couple of media members. Asked how he felt about his team's 27-percent shooting he replied, "Like (expletive)."
So at least someone from the Utes was into the game.
In the big picture, the outcome may not have made much impact. It didn't have anything to do with the conference championship. All it did was help keep BYU's hopes of a high NCAA Tournament seed alive.
In the smaller picture, it tied the longtime series after a nice, round 250-game run.
That in itself is something to note.
Even if nobody else is paying attention.
e-mail: rock@desnews.com