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It must have been all that hair that had been holding Utah's Stephen Weigh back.
Too bad the rest of the Utes did not play as well as he did on Thursday.
While Weigh was scoring a career-high 22 points after shearing his shaggy locks following a rough stretch that got him dropped from the starting lineup, his teammates came up short in a 59-58 loss to Albany at the Huntsman Center on Thursday.
"Towards the end, it just seemed that everything went their way," he said.
The Utes failed three times in the final seconds to take advantage of opportunities that might have lifted them to victory, and suffered their fifth loss of the season by three points or less. By falling to 5-8 and losing for the fifth time in seven games, they extended their worst start since 1982.
"It's getting frustrating for everybody," center Luke Nevill said. "We just have to keep our heads up and push through it. We can't let this affect us going into conference."
The Utes have nearly a week off before meeting UNLV in the first game of their Mountain West Conference season - the Rebels denied legendary coach Bob Knight his 880th victory Thursday by beating Texas Tech 74-66 - and they will continue searching for ways to pull out of their slump.
Against the Great Danes, they nearly did it.
Although they allowed Jason Siggers to score a career-high 22 points, and Brent Wilson also scored 22 while making six of his team's 11 three-pointers, the Utes went ahead 58-57 with 1:24 left when Nevill threw in a desperation turnaround jumper from inside the key to beat the shot clock.
"I just heard someone counting down, like, 'Three . . . two . . ." Nevill said. "So I just grabbed the ball and just turned around and shot a jump shot, I guess."
The shot completed a comeback from a nine-point deficit with 10 1/2 minutes left, accomplished largely when the Utes had four freshmen on the floor - Weigh, Daniel Deane, Luke Drca and Curtis Eatmon.
But once Nevill missed a shot trying to pad the lead, nothing went right.
Albany's Jamar Wilson streaked down the floor for an easy layup that gave the Great Danes a 59-58 lead with 34 seconds left, and Nevill lost the ball amid a double-team as he tried to maneuver for a shot with less than 10 seconds remaining.
"Just knocked it out of my hands, I guess," Nevill said.
Then, the Utes twice failed to secure the rebound after the Great Danes missed the front end of one-and-one free-throw opportunities in the final 4.4 seconds. The Utes did manage to throw an inbounds pass the length of the floor with 0.9 seconds left, but Siggers intercepted it to end the game.
"The young kids battled their butt off to get us back in it," coach Ray Giacoletti said. "I'm happy with their effort. But again, you miss box-outs. . . . We had a chance, up one with the ball. You have to be successful at your end, or you don't win. And then, we give up a friggin' layup, of all things, on a run-out. It's just elementary things of the game. It's not rocket science."
The Great Danes won their fifth straight game to improve to 7-4, after making their first NCAA Tournament appearance last season.
Nevill added 17 points for the Utes, but they again demonstrated an inability to get him the ball in the post - to go along with their continued inability to stop the three-point shot.
"We have to be able to do a better job entering the ball to the post when he's open," Giacoletti said. "We don't do a good job, and he has to take another step off the post. . . . Our cuts and our fills were not very good tonight, to give Luke options and we need to do a better job - I'll take the blame - finding the options for him instead of standing and watching."
Albany 59, Utah 58
FG FT Reb
ALBANY Min M-A M-A O-T A PF PTS
Gifford 25 0-0 0-0 3-4 0 3 0
Connelly 25 1-3 0-0 1-1 2 0 2
Wilson, B. 35 9-14 0-1 3-9 1 3 22
Wilson, J. 32 4-14 0-3 0-3 4 3 8
Lillis 12 0-0 0-0 1-1 2 4 0
Ross 9 0-0 0-0 0-0 3 1 0
Iati 9 2-5 0-0 0-0 1 2 5
Anderson 5 0-0 0-0 0-2 0 0 0
Covington 15 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Siggers 33 8-15 0-0 0-1 1 2 22
Totals 200 24-51 0-4 9-23 14 19 59
Percentages: FG .470, FT .000. 3-Point Goals: 11-26, .420 (Siggers 6-11, Iati 1-4, J. Wilson 0-3, B. Wilson 4-8). Team Rebounds: 0. Team Turnovers: 0. Blocked Shots: 0. Turnovers: 9 (Siggers, Lillis, J. Wilson 5, Connelly, Anderson). Steals: 8 (Iati, Ross 2, Lillis, J. Wilson 2, B. Wilson 2). Technical Fouls: None.
FG FT Reb
UTAH Min M-A M-A O-T A PF PTS
Nevill 34 5-7 7-8 2-7 0 0 17
Borha 23 0-2 0-0 0-1 1 3 0
Green 26 2-4 0-0 0-1 2 2 5
Eatmon 21 1-3 0-0 2-3 3 1 2
Bryant 32 1-6 0-1 0-1 0 3 3
Weigh 28 7-9 6-7 2-5 1 2 22
Deane 15 3-4 1-2 1-6 1 0 7
Johns 6 0-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Radojevic 6 0-0 0-0 1-2 0 1 0
Drca 8 0-2 2-2 1-2 1 1 2
Totals 19-39 16-20 9-30 9 13 58
Percentages: FG .490, FT .800. 3-Point Goals: 4-9, .444 (Weigh 2-2. Bryant 1-4, Green 1-2, Borha 0-1). Team Rebounds: 0. Team Turnovers: 1. Blocked Shots: 5 (Nevill 2, Borha, Green 2). Turnovers: 12 (Nevill 3, Borha 2, Green, Eatmon 2, Bryant, Weigh, Drca). Steals: 6 (Johns, Deane, Green, Eatmon 3). Technical Fouls: None.
Albany 30 28 - 59
Utah 27 31 - 58
A-9,483.