Just how good are these guys?
"They say if you're strong up the middle, you're going to be hard to beat," San Diego State coach Steve Fisher said. "And Utah's stronger up the middle, by far, than any team in our league."
The 22-3 Utes have borne that out so far, climbing to No. 14 in the AP Top 25 while winning 17 games in a row and giving themselves a chance to clinch the Mountain West Conference regular-season title at Air Force on Saturday. Yet while the unexpectedly strong surge might have fans starting to think Sweet 16 or maybe even . . . more, the Utes still can't be certain how equipped they might be to make a serious run into the NCAA Tournament.
"They're built to go deep in the national tournament," BYU coach Steve Cleveland said, "if they get a good seed."
And that's the catch.
No team in the five-season history of the Mountain West has received a better seed than the No. 8 the Utes earned five years ago, while 10 of the 12 conference teams that have reached the NCAA Tournament did so with seeds between No. 10 and No. 14. Those teams are a combined 3-12 in tournament play, and none of them have reached the Sweet 16.
In fact, only once in tournament history has a team with a double-digit seed reached the Final Four, and that was No. 11 LSU in 1986, when Louisville eventually won the championship.
"Part of the reason our league has not won in postseason play - part of it - is nobody gets a seed of any value," Fisher said. "You get a nine to 11 seed or whatever it might be, and it's hard to win. If you get a four seed, now you've got a chance to make some noise, and I'd say that's what Utah is steadily moving towards. . . . Utah is a very, very good basketball team that will create problems for anybody."
Probably true.
The Utes, after all, have a dominant center in 7-foot All-America candidate Andrew Bogut and a strong guard presence in tough Marc Jackson - the "up-the-middle" guys to whom Fisher referred. They rank in the top six nationally in the elemental statistical categories of field-goal percentage, rebound margin and points allowed, and have shown no signs of being a team that can be intimidated or rattled.
"We're pretty solid all around," forward Justin Hawkins said. "We have a lot of weapons, a lot of different guys who can score. Everybody's tough and plays good defense."
But have they really proved it?
Obviously, the Utes have built some gaudy monuments to their talent - the winning streak, the national ranking, an all-but-certain top seed in the conference tournament next month at the Pepsi Center in Denver.
But they also have faced the third-weakest schedule among ranked teams, according to the Ratings Percentage Index used to help determine seeding for the NCAA Tournament, and they have not beaten a team rated in the top 30. And while they do have Bogut, who averages 20.5 points and leads the nation in rebounding with 11.9 per game, they might not have four future NBA players on the roster, the way their 1998 Final Four team did.
So anybody rooting for the Utes to re-ignite the spark that led them into the national championship game against Kentucky seven years ago - they were still in the Western Athletic Conference then - no doubt is rooting for them also to become the first team to tear unbeaten through the Mountain West season (four games remain) and then win the league tournament.
That way, the Utes would be simply too hot to receive another mediocre seed in the NCAA Tournament.
"They have just gotten better and better," UNLV coach Lon Kruger said. "They appear to be more comfortable with their roles, they complement each other on the floor extremely well. . . . Without question, they're not only deserving of a high seed, but they can certainly play for a while, and hopefully that's the case."
By one measure, the Utes already are ahead of the '98 team that earned a No. 3 seed in the West Regional. On Feb. 25, 1998, that team was 23-2 with an RPI ranking of 35, a number the current Utes already have nearly halved. Then again, the '98 Utes made their run to the Final Four despite losing to UNLV in the first round of the WAC tournament.
"I know in my experience . . . we had RPIs in the 20s and low 30s and we got 12th seeds" in three of the past four seasons, Cleveland recalled. "But we weren't a ranked team, either, like Utah. I think the fact that they're ranked, the fact that they have arguably one of the two or three best players in the country, and they have a great tradition and have won 16, 17, 18 games in a row . . . all of that will bode very well for a good seed.
"And if they get a three, four or five seed," he added, "they're going to be in a situation where they could" go far. "Even if they get a bad seed . . . they're still capable, because their guys are so athletic on the wings and they can guard most people. No matter who they play, it's going to be a great game."
Naturally, the Utes swear they have not looked so far ahead.
Giacoletti has maintained all season that one reason his team has been so successful is because it really has been able to avoid looking past its next game. He said the Utes set a goal at the beginning of the season to win the league title, "and that's really the only thing we've talked about with them."
The Utes also believe that despite their winning streak and blossoming national profile, they have yet to play their best basketball.
"We've won with defense," guard Tim Drisdom said. "When we find our best offensive game, we can be pretty tough."
For the moment, then?
"Coach Giac has told us, and I think this is really true, you're never as good as people say and you're never as bad as people say," Hawkins said. "You're probably somewhere in between. Sure, yes, I think we're a very good team and we've done a lot of good things this year, but I think we still can accomplish more as a team. . . . The goal set when we started the season was to win a conference championship, so that's the only goal we're focusing on right now. After that's over, then we can make ourselves a new goal."
mcl@sltrib.com
