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Show Thursday, June 6. The Daily Utah Chronicle - Page Ten 1991 Sports Chronicle Teaim f th Yesiir PAST WINNERS Runnin' Ute Basketball 1988 - Golf 1989 - Men's tennis 1990 - Gymnastics CHRONICLE PHOTOEarl Cline The Runnin' Ute basketball team, shown here at the Utah State Capitol Building after being honored by the Legislature, is the 1991 Chronicle Team of the Year. The 1990-9- 1 Runnin Ute basketball season unfolded like a children's storybook. With the exception of one bit of PG-13-rat- violence ed when backup center Paul Afeaki was shot in the shoulder by an irate motorist, miraculously leaving only a minor injury and the language often used by it's coach, Rick Majerus, the year would make the perfect subject ed matter for a Disney Night at the Movies. "We're just like the Little Engine That Could," Majerus said after his team clinched the Western Athletic Conference title by beating instate rival BYU a full two weeks before the regular season was complete. "We just kept chugging uphill." Qx5 Utah had from being gone thought of as a second-rat- e k team in a conference, to finishing In just four-month- s, middle-of-the-pac- the year with the third best record in the nation, a top-1- 0 national ranking, a "Sweet 16" visit to the NCAA Tournament and an record. all-tim- e school best 30-- 4 single publication predicted a finish in better than sixth-plac- e WAC. Utah had the nine-team 78-year-- 16-1- basketball before. For its outstanding accomplishments, the Runnin' Ute basketball team has been named the 1991 Chronicle Team of the Year. "Utah's like the Pinkerton cops in that Butch Cassidy movie," Wyoming coach Benny Dees said. "They just keep making you say, 'Who are these guys?'" The Utes' rise to the top was hardly predictable. In fact, not a S. "Nobody expected anything from us," Ute guard Craig Rydalch said late in the season. "We set a goal, before the season ever began, to win the WAC, and we honestly felt we could. We just never told anyone." The season didn't start on the right foot, as nearly every Ute suffered some sort of injury and missed valuable practice time prior to the start of the year. Rydalch had surgery on his ankle to remove bone chips. freshman guard Phil Dixon could only practice Sharp-shootin- g day as he recovered from lacerating a nerve in his calf every-othe- r the previous year. Afeaki and guard Byron Wilson had knee problems which caused missed practice time, and junior college transfer M'Kay McGrath suffered from painful shin splints. "It was to the point where we couldn't scrimmage because we didn't have enough players to field two teams," Majerus said. "We had (assistant coaches) Jeff (Judkins) and Kirk (Earlywine) play in practice so we could do drills." Majerus, however, was healthy. After missing all but six games the year before due to a septuple bypass in his first season at Utah, the coach was 45-poun- ds slimmer and ready to go. By Nov. 24, the night of the first game, all the players were relatively healthy and ready to Utah opened the year by Elay. two small colleges at home easily and then squeaked out a win over Wisconsin-Milwauke- e CHRONICLE PHOTOEarl Cline Jimmy Soto (right) and Tyrone Tate celebrate Utah's WAC title clinching win over BYU by cutting down the Huntsman Center nets. The Utes went 30-- 4 for the year. V After losing to the Wolverines, the Utes didn't lose for nearly two months which included 17 lost three of its starters from the games. Utah's winning streak school previous season's club which had broke the tied for sixth in the league and record tied the longest in WAC finished 4 overall. Eight of history. Yet, despite the streak, the 15 players on the roster had the Utes were slow in getting never played NCAA Division I national attention. in its first road game. The Utes then faced their first big test of the year playing at Michigan. They failed. The Wolverines blew a close game open, in the final minutes to win But the Michigan game became a learning experience. 81-6- 5. On Jan. 12, Utah defeated WAC-fo- e Texas-E- l for it's Paso, 67-60, 12th consecutive win, which improved its overall record to 15-Still the Utes were unranked in the national top 25 polls. UTEP coach Don "the Bear" Haskins, the third winningest active coach 1. in America, had nothing but praise for the Utes. "Utah has a fine team," Haskins said. "They deserve to be ranked in the top 20. If they were back East, they'd be ranked third." The next week Utah cracked the top 25 and started its gradual climb in the polls. An interesting aspect of Utah's success was the lack of superstars. Josh Grant, a forward, led the team with a 17.5 scoring points per game, while the only other Ute to average double figures was senior center Walter Watts (10.2 ppg). Meanwhile, 10 players averaged nine or more minutes of playing time per outing, and nine players scored an average of five or more points per game. "What makes Utah so hard to defend is that they have so many players they can throw at you," BYU coach Roger Reid said during the season. "If you shut one player down, another will rise up and hurt you." "We were like one big family and we really relied on each other," Grant, the WAC's Player of the Year, said. "If one person on the team hadn't been there, we wouldn't have won as much." That the Ute team was the epitome of teamwork was interesting in itself when you consider the diverse backgrounds of the team members. Rydalch is a returned Mormon missionary who is from a small town in Utah (Oakley) where he played basketball for 1A South Summit High. Teammates Wilson and Tyrone Tate come from the big Midwestern Cities of Gary, Ind. and Chicago, respectively. Afeaki was born on the Pacific island of Tonga, while Dixon hails from Jamaica by way of Add Canada. Toronto, Californian's Walter Watts and Barry Howard. Mix in a couple of local Salt Lake City products (Grant and Jimmy Soto) with an Arizonan (McGrath), and you've had the core of the team. "I think one of the keys to our success has been that the players have a real love for each other," Majerus said. As the Utes' winning ways continued, the rest of the nation began to take notice. The winning streak came to a halt Feb. 2 when New Mexico 17-ga- managed a 66-6- 2 victory in Albuquerque, but, just like after the loss at Michigan, the Utes came back even stronger. Utah won six straight to close out the regular season, including a pair of victories over arch-rivBYU, to win the WAC Championship going away. The Utes' closest league foe finished al behind in the Utah won 15 WAC standings. a record for games, setting four-gam- es conference wins in a season. The Utes won a pair of games in the WAC Tournament before in overtime losing a heart-breakto BYU in the finals. Still the er Utes were given the West Regional's fourth seed in the NCAA tourney and headed to Tucson, Ariz. In the first round of the tourney, the Utes faced a talented South Alabama team, the Sunbelt Conference champions. The Jaguars pressed the Utes into uncharacteristic turnovers in the first half and led by seven at intermission. But the Utes scored the first 14 points of the second half to coast to a 82-7- 2 victory. Then, in what will go down as one of the most exciting games in Ute history, Utah needed two overtimes to beat Michigan State, 85-8- 4. That win gave the Utes a chance to be David in Seattle, but the NCAA's biggest Goliath, UNLV, proved to De too much. 6 The Rebels' victory ended Utah's storybook season. But, oh what a ride it was. 83-6- |