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Show 8 Monday, March 24, 2008 SPORTS Toda Men's Basketball Tuesda Utah (18-14) vs. Tulsa (21-13) 8:05p.m. CT, Tulsa, Okla. www.dailyutahchronicle.com Women's Basketball Wednesda Baseball Men's Tennis Softball Men's Tennis Utah (7-12) @ Utah Valley State (5-16-1) Utah vs. Boise State Utah vs. UC Irvine 7 p.m., Orem, Utah 5 p.m. Salt Lake City Utah Utah (16-15) @ Utah State (3-17) 2 p.m. Logan, Utah 1p.m. Salt Lake Gty Utah Home-court may have tipped scales LACROSSE Natalie Dicou STAFF WRITER West Lafayette, Ind.—Going into the NCAA tournament, the Utes knew they had a big hurdle to overcome—they'd have to get past Purdue on its home court in order to keep their aspirations alive. In hoops, home-court advantage is big. Just ask the Utah Jazz. The Boilermakers' home-court advantage proved too daunting for the Utes as Purdue ousted them from the Big Dance in front of nearly 5,000 Purdue faithful. Ironically, the Utes, who had the higher seed and wore their home whites, were listed as the home team while the Boilermakers played in their away uniforms. But the game was anything but a home game for the Utes. In fact, the entire Utah contingency consisted of no more than 30 stalwart fans, not including the Utah band and cheerleaders. So, did Utah head coach Elaine Elliott think that Purdue was given a huge advantage by getting to stay in West Lafayette, Ind., and playing in the friendly confines of Mackey Arena? "They are 12-4 now at home and 4-8 on the road, so you tell me," Elliott deadpanned after the disappointing early exit. "Everybody's better at home, so good for them. They had a great opportunity and they took advantage of it." Purdue advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament for the 12th straight year. Purdue has been successful in the tournament over the years, going 39-17 all-time. The Boilermakers have, however, gotten a little extra help because of the simple fact See COURT Page 13 BRIEF PHOTO COURTESY ASSOCIATED PRESS Purdue's Kalika France and guard FahKara Malone defend Morgan Warburton during the first round of the women's NCAA basketball tournament. Warburton scored a game high 18 points in the loss. Utes evenly matched Tony Pizza SPORTS EDITOR TYLER COBB/ftf fc.'y Ulsh Out-nth Utah senior guard Johnnie Bryant will look to extend his Utah career as the Utes face Tulsa in the College Basketball Invitational tonight. When Utah head coach Jim Boylen goes to exchange pregame pleasantries with Tulsa head coach Doug Wojcik tonight, he'll likely have more to offer than a handshake. The meeting will probably be more along the lines of, "Thanks for the opportunity," with the chance for a laugh and a few anecdotes about what it's like to work for legendary Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo. Wojcik, who was a former assistant coach under Izzo, cleared the way for Boylen to work under the same Spartan legend when he left the program three years ago to head Tulsa's basketball program. Tonight, the two teams of the former Spartan assistants will meet in Tulsa, Okla., for the quarterfinal round of the inaugural College Basketball Invitational. While the CBI has basically existed in the shadows of the well-established postseason tournaments such as the NIT and NCAA Tour- nament, it hasn't stopped Boylen from appreciating the opportunity for his team See UTES Page 9 Utah Utes (18-14) Tulsa Golden Hurricane March 24,2008 •7:05 p.m. Reynolds Arena, Tulsa, Okla. (21-13) J S ^ www.cbistreaming.com FCS (DTV 669, Comcast 413) C ^ j K A L L 700 Ute notes: • .761 free-throw percentage average (No. 15 nation) • Johnnie Bryant is the No. 1 scorer in the nation for players who have yet to start a single game this season. • After finishing the season at No. 251 in total defense last year, Utah is ranked No. 60 this season. • Utah's win over UTEP last Wednesday was its first postseason win since 2004-2005. Hurricane notes: • .732 free-throw percentage average • Ben Uzoh leads the team in scoring with a 15.3 points-per-game average. • Tulsa is 14-2 at home this season with one of those losses coming at the hands of Memphis. • Against UTEP, Nevill recorded his fourth double-double of the season (16 points, 12 rebounds) • Brent McDade led the Golden Hurricane to a 61-45 win over Miami (OH) by scoring 18 of his 22 points in the first half. • Tyler Kepkay, who had a resurgent effort against UTEP, injured his ribs in the 81-69 win, but will be available tonight. •Tulsa went 1-1 against UTEP this season. Tulsa won at home and lost 65-61 in overtime in El Paso, Texas. Food for thought; Both Utah and Tulsa jumped off to quick starts in their opening-round CBI wins. Both teams jumped out to 9-0 leads and cruised to double-digit wins—the only two teams to do so.Utah leads the all-time series 4-1. Red Rocks rebound Jon Gilbert CODY STAFF WRITER BRUNNER the bars against BYU on Feb. 8 and has been working her way back from a foot fracture. Order has been restored in Kristina Baskett won the the Utah gymnastics team's event with a 9.925, and Ashley universe. Postell anchored the team with The Red Rocks bounced back a 9.90. from their loss last week to Michigan fell behind despite Florida by conquering Michi- posting solid scores on vault. gan 197.425-196.325 in Ann Ar- No gymnast was able to eclipse bor, Mich., on Friday. the 9.90 barrier, however, and After posting two sub-197.00 Nellie Kippley fell in the final scores, No. 3. Utah (11-1) was spot of the rotation. looking to get back on trackMichigan experienced a fall but that isn't so easy when on every event but only had to visiting No. 4 Michigan (18-1), count one. Both Lindsey Bruck where Utah was 1-5 all-time be- and Jordan Sexton fell on balfore Friday. ance beam. Head coach Greg Marsden Two weeks ago against Orhad mentioned leading up to egon State, Postell fell on her the meet that it would be fun bars routine and her beam roufor his team to enter a chal- tine. Last week against Florida, lenging environment. Michigan the senior struggled to a 9.775 was undefeated before Friday's on her beam routine in a losing meet, and Utah had not won effort. Postell, the nation's top in Ann Arbor since 2001. After all-around performer, returned improving against Florida in a to her steady ways by earning loss, Utah showed the nation it her seventh all-around victory has fully recovered. of the season at the Michigan "Obviously we have the po- meet. tential to be better than we "Tonight was much closer to were last week," Marsden said. the old Ashley," Marsden said. The Red Rocks grabbed a Postell's meet-winning 39.70 0.2 lead after the first rotation is her third highest mark of the while on the uneven bars. Nina season. By winning the vault, Kim started Utah off with a 9.85 beam, floor and - all-around Nina Kim kicked off the bars for the Red Rocks in her first bars routine in six with a 9.85.The outing was thefirst performance weeks. Kim last performed on See RED ROCKS Page 12 on the bars for Kim In the last six weeks. Loss or no, No. 8 seed wasn't fair S ome would say they got the raw end of the deal. Still others would say they got shafted. I would say the U women's basketball team got dragged up and down a metal stairwell, slapped in the face multiple times and publicly stoned. An eight seed. A first-round matchup with Purdue on the Boilermakers' home court. A possible second-round meeting with women's college basketball juggernaut and No. i seed Tennessee if they win. That was the Utes' reward for going undefeated throughout conference play—a feat only accomplished by one other team in Mountain West Conference history. That was the Utes' reward for losing just three games throughout the regular season, and losing those games in overtime to tournament shoe-ins Stanford and Marist, as well as a solid USC team. For those of you who don't follow women's college basketball, this is roughly the equivalent of the Memphis men's basketball See BRUNNER Page 10 The No. 25 Utah lacrosse team spent its spring break in Southern California, but it wasn't there for fun and sun, The Utes were there to play three games in four days. Utah started the trip against Claremont College (5-3) on Thursday in Claremont. The Utes got off to a slow start, trailing 6-1 at the end of the first quarter, but went back and forth with Claremont throughout the second and third quarters to pull the score to 10-5. That's as close as the U got to winning. Claremont came out fired up in the fourth quarter and scored five goals while the Utes failed to score and lost 15-5. Junior attackman Matt Qualey had one goal and one assist. "Claremont is a hungry team, and they took it to us," Utah head coach Rich Levi said. On Friday, Utah faced off against No. 3 Chapman (9-1) in Orange County. Utah came into the game as an underdog but managed to hold Chapman scoreless in the second quarter, resulting in a 4-2 halftime lead for Chapman. The Utes couldn't keep up in the second half, though. Qualey and junior attackman Ryan Watts both scored two goals, but the Utes lost 14-6. Freshman Andrew Martinelli stopped 21 goals, which is a career high. "We were huge underdogs against Chapman, but we hung tough," Levi said. Utah hoped to leave California with at least one win but failed to do so on Sunday as No. 13 Cal Poly-San Lois Obispo C5-3) proved to be too much for the Utes. Utah was up 4-3 at halftime but allowed Cal Poly to go on a big run, leaving Utah with a 10-8 loss. "Each game we play, we are getting better," Levi said. "Hopefully we gained some momentum this weekend to carry with us to Colorado next weekend." Utah (3-6) will travel to Colorado to face the No. 10 Buffaloes (1-1) and No. 2 Colorado State (6-2) on March 28 and 29. Tim Haslam INNIS Spring break started off well for the U men's tennis team with a win in sunny San Diego. That was about all the good times the Utes experienced on the court, however. Utah started off with a win over Dartmouth then fell to No. 6y San Diego and then to Princeton to finish their recent road trip 1-2. Zach Ganger won two of three singles matches during . the week, but he and Miron Mann only picked up one of three wins in doubles action. The week started last Sunday with the Utes dropping two of three doubles matches to fall into an early hole. The Utes, however, picked up five of their six singles matches to coast to an easy victory. "It was a good win (Sunday) and definitely our best showing (outdoors)," head coach F.D. Robbins said. "Especially after dropping the doubles point, we competed really well to win the match.'1 The win did not carry over to the rest of the week's competition. The doubles duo of Tim Allin and Wes Hancock managed to prevent San Diego's clean sweep, but the Utes still lost in points 7-0. The duo were the only U doubles team to win on Thursday against Princeton, but Mann and Ganger managed to help Utah pick up its two points with their singles match victories in Utah's 5-2 loss. Tony Pizza The .Puttin' Utes finished third on Sunday at the Ron See BRIEFS Page 10 — , |