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The California Bears arrived at the Huntsman Center as the Pac-12's hottest team, made a 10-0 run midway through the first half, produced two scorers with 20-plus points and outrebounded Utah.
No wonder the Utes won by only 15 points Sunday night.
With the asterisk that Arizona remains ticketed for a late February visit, the Utes are dominating conference opponents in this building like never before in program history. Utah's 76-61 defeat of Cal was extraordinary, just because the Bears stayed closer than any of the previous six Pac-12 visitors this year.
Not even Rick Majerus' greatest teams of the late 1990s ransacked everybody, but Larry Krystkowiak's Utes have beaten conference opponents by an average of 22 points at home.
That explains the line of questioning about what took the Utes so long to get going Sunday. The Bears had something to do with that, as guards Tyrone Wallace and Jabari Bird were making a bunch of shots in giving Cal a 32-26 lead with five minutes left in the first half.
And then Utah got serious, locking in defensively and making life miserable for yet another team in dark jerseys.
Once the Utes seize control of a home game, the kidding around is pretty much over. Unlike last season, when the Utes were known to fade in second halves, "We're not letting teams get back into the game," said senior guard Delon Wright.
That accounts for how they've hammered USC by 24, UCLA by 32, Colorado by 25, Washington State by 22, Washington by 21, Stanford by 16 and Cal by 15.
Apparently, the Utes exhausted their allotment of Huntsman Center drama in early December, when they topped Wichita State in overtime. That's not to say there was a complete absence of angst Sunday, when the biggest cheers of the night came as Wright walked from the tunnel to the bench, while teammate Dakarai Tucker was shooting a free throw in the second half.
That response was an expression of relief, after Wright injured his ankle and hobbled to the locker room for examination. He returned to the court soon afterward and ended up playing 35 minutes, scoring 16 points. Yet that brief absence was frightening enough, with even Krystkowiak detecting how "the life in the building kind of was sucked out of there, for a minute," he said.
That's how fragile this stuff is, and the No. 11 Utes are mindful of everything good that's happening to them as they've moved to 20-4 overall, 10-2 in the conference. Rick Hill's life makes them appreciate this season even more.
The father of assistant coach Andy Hill died Saturday, about six months after being diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. The Utes already had dedicated their season to him, with "RH" stitched on the players' collars, and they were moved when Andy Hill's mother and other relatives visited the locker room.
Rick Hill had moved from eastern Washington to the Salt Lake Valley and become attached to the Utes, and they knew how much they meant to him. He watched them play in person for the last time Jan. 4 vs. UCLA. The cancer persisted, until Saturday.
"That's the thing I think of; he doesn't have to struggle anymore," Krystkowiak said.
Andy Hill was on the sideline, as always, directing Utah's defensive effort. The Utes were not at their best on that end of the court Sunday, yet they blocked seven shots and held a capable offensive team to 61 points. The Bears had won five straight games before coming to town, and can claim to have played the Utes tougher than any other Pac-12 team in the Huntsman Center, so far.
Arizona State and Arizona are left on Utah's home schedule, in between swings to the Oregon and Washington schools to close the regular season. Expecting the Utes to maintain this level of home-court domination for a full conference schedule would be asking too much, considering Arizona's talent.
There's enough work for the Utes to do between now and Feb. 28 to keep Krystkowiak from looking ahead to that potential championship game, of course. But that's not a problem for the rest of us.
Twitter: @tribkurt