Las Vegas » Utah's Shaun Green never had such an opportunity. He wasn't about to waste it.

With the final seconds winding down in the championship game of the Mountain West Conference tournament, the senior forward whom teammate Carlon Brown described as "usually slow" summoned a sudden flash of quickness when the Utes needed it most, poking the ball away from San Diego State's Richie Williams as he raced downcourt searching for a game-tying basket and allowing the Utes to escape with a 52-50 victory at the Thomas & Mack Center on Saturday night.

"I saw him bobble it for a second, with his outside hand," Green said. "Stuck my hand in at the right time, and happened to come up with it."

Along with it, he fished out the biggest Utah victory in four years -- one that effectively broke the three-way tie for the league's regular-season title and rewarded the Utes with an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament just hours after the women's team also beat the Aztecs for the tournament title. And now that the 24-9 Utes snapped a four-game losing streak against top-50 teams away from home, they can probably expect at least a No. 7 seed when the tournament field is announced today.

"We wanted to prove something," Brown said. "We had a lot of doubters coming into the tournament, after losing two to BYU and New Mexico on the road. We wanted to come over and set ourselves a goal of winning the tournament outright, and by ourselves."

In doing so, the Utes both validated coach Jim Boylen's rebuilding project and unchained his emotions. Boylen cried during seemingly every interview he gave after the game, talking about how far his team -- particularly its three four-year seniors -- have come since he took the job two years ago.

"We came down here to win," he said. "That's what we talked about."

Almost didn't happen, though. Though the Utes controlled the game behind center Luke Nevill after scoring the first eight points of the second half -- Nevill finished with 18 points, 15 rebounds and the tournament Most Valuable Player award -- the Aztecs nearly pulled it out, thanks to Williams.

Having not scored the whole game, the senior point guard suddenly scored eight straight points in an 18-second span on a jumper and two high-arcing three-pointers, cutting the lead to 51-50 with 7.6 seconds left. And when Utah's Lawrence Borha missed the second of two free throws with 5.7 seconds left, Williams had a chance to make him pay.

"We still had a chance to win the game," San Diego State's Lorrenzo Wade said.

But the Aztecs didn't have Green, who said he just instinctively reached out when Williams raced past, unconcerned about potentially committing a foul. Ultimately, he corralled the loose ball after a scramble, and the Utes and their fans streamed onto the court in celebration.

"I was just hoping he would get it," Brown said. "I saw him tap it, and I saw it bouncing around -- I didn't know what was going on -- and when he grabbed it, I just ran across the court and started screaming."

Meanwhile, the Aztecs fell to 23-9 and tried to retain hope that they will receive an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament. But coach Steve Fisher congratulated the Utes, who held his Aztecs to 39 percent shooting after halftime -- only 22 points, too, until Williams' threatening flourish -- and shot 20-for-27 from the free-throw line during their crowning achievement.

"We took last year, kind of rebuilding, growing," Nevill said. "We had a great summer together, and we came out this year ready to go and ready to make a difference, make an imprint in the Mountain West. And we did it."

mcl@sltrib.com