This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Tonight's college basketball game at the Huntsman Center pitting 5-1 Utah and 4-1 BYU will be the fifth since the schools left the Mountain West Conference, BYU going to the West Coast Conference and Utah to the Pac-12.

The "nonconference" series is tied 2-2, with BYU having won in 2011 and 2012 and Utah having won the last two years, including 65-61 last year in Provo.

When the series was set up in 2011, the sides agreed to play the second Saturday of December every year. But that plan had to be dumped last year because Utah had an opportunity to play Kansas in Kansas City.

BYU coach Dave Rose said Tuesday that tonight's game marks the start of a new two-year contract, but wasn't sure why it is being played on a Wednesday night again. It begins a three-game run for BYU against instate teams; The Cougars will meet Weber State on Saturday at the Utah Jazz arena in SLC and Utah State on Dec. 9 in Provo.

Weber State and Utah State both played Tuesday night and neither will play again until they meet BYU.

"You look at these 10 games, eight are away from our building," Rose said. "Once you get to league, it is really important to be playing your best. Hopefully we can build some momentum with what I consider to be a pretty challenging schedule here in the next five or six weeks."

If there's a tighter longtime rivalry in the country than BYU-Utah, I'd like to see it. BYU leads the all-time series 129-127, although rarely have both teams been really good, or really bad, in the same season. BYU won 11 of 12 — the only loss in OT at Utah — before Utah's recent resurgence.

Utah is an 8.5-point favorite tonight, which seems about right. The Utes have the best player — 7-footer Jakob Poeltl — and are playing at home, and BYU did not play particularly well in November, save last Saturday's 95-81 win over Belmont.

Here are a few leftover comments from coach Dave Rose, comments that didn't make yesterday's blog about the game:

On what he's concerned about while preparing to face the Utes:

"Well, we are concerned about a lot. It is a good team, and I think that hopefully the things we really can depend on are our effort and our defensive assignments and our ability to rebound. Those things have been pretty solid for us. That's something that we can depend on going up there.

Offensively, we've been up and down. That's been a real staple for us over the years. We've been pretty free flowing, consistent offensive team.

Hopefully we can make strides. I thought we made some real strides in the Belmont game, especially in the second half. Hopefully we can build on that in this game. But this is one of those games that are real opportunities for your team early in the season, and hopefully we can take advantage of them."

On how BYU's defense is this year compared to last year:

"It is better. I think that we compare a lot of those numbers to a totally different team. We have played with, the majority of the time we had four guards on the floor, and we were guarding a lot differently as far as just schematically. We were trying to pressure and deny, because that was our advantage. If they got close to the basket physically it was really tough on us.

I think we are better around the rim, we are better protecting the paint, we are better rebounding the ball. But I think a lot of it was by design and by the personnel we were playing."

On how key rebounding and controlling pace is for BYU:

"Well, defensive rebounding is huge for us. They are very very good at tracking down their misses, and in some games they don't miss many. But hopefully we can create that. It is two-fold, these defensive possessions. We have to guard them hard and challenge shots and get them to miss, and then the next challenge is to grab it, track it down. That has been a strength of our team, and hopefully we will play to that strength here on Wednesday night. But the first and most important thing is to make them tough shots.

If the ball is going inside the the big fella has it in his hands around the basket, that will be difficult for us because he is really good down there, not only in scoring for himself, but finding guys for open shots."