FORT COLLINS — Any college hoops purist who believes there is no BCS in basketball hasn’t met Utah men’s coach Jim Boylen.
The way he sees it, the more exposure Utah’s football team generates for the school, the bigger his recruiting audience.
And relative to the rest of the Mountain West Conference, there’s a lot of money generated for the department.
“Absolutely,” Boylen said on the MWC conference call this week. “I think football winning is the key to the university at all levels. You have to get that Utah brand out there, and football did a great job of that. In basketball, we are a national name and do have some great tradition.”
Therein lies one of the many differences between the second-year Utah coach and former Utes coach Rick Majerus. It’s no coincidence Majerus is at Saint Louis in the nonfootball Atlantic 10. Boylen is a positive reinforcement communicator, whether caught on tape in practice or taking the microphone in the Huntsman Center after a game to thank Utah fans and his wife. Majerus’ long-rumored peculiarities and vicious criticism of his players were revealed last year by Sports Illustrated.
Utah (18-7, 9-2), which has a one-game lead in the MWC and is rated as high as No. 11 in some RPI formulas, plays at Colorado State (8-17, 3-8) on Wednesday night. Utah is an NCAA Tournament lock with potential for a deep run. CSU hopes to avoid the MWC Tournament’s play-in game.
While Boylen’s incoming recruiting class has been ranked among the best outside of basketball’s six power conferences, Utah’s immediate future is with a senior-based international lineup featuring 7-foot-2 center Luke Nevill, who averages 17.1 points and is a candidate for MWC player of the year.
If he can overtake Wyoming guard Brandon Ewing in the scoring column (Ewing leads by 1.1 points per game) Nevill could finish as the first MWC player to lead the league in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots.
Nevill, who was recruited to Utah by former Utes coach Ray Giacoletti from Australia as “the next Andrew Bogut,” probably won’t be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. Some might argue Bogut shouldn’t have gone No. 1 in the 2005 draft.
“Luke cares more about winning than how he does,” Boylen said. “He’s done a better job of raising his teammates and being a teammate.”
That’s fine for Nevill’s coach to say. CSU coach Tim Miles looks at film of the Utes and shudders.
“He’s a difficult match,” Miles said of Nevill. “He messes up the lane, and you have to go right at him.”
Natalie Meisler: 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com
