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Show 6 Wednesday, December 9, 2009 Wednesday SPORTS www.dailyutahchronicle.com Satur • ay Men's Basketball Dec. 19 '1111 Michigan @ Utah Men's Basketball Oklahoma @ Utah Women's Basketball Women's Basketball Men's Basketball 7 P.M. Huntsman Center 2 P.M. Huntsman Center 7 P.M. Huntsman Center Noon, Huntsman Center 4 P.M. Huntsman Center Westminster @ Utah South Dakota State @ Utah MEN'S BASKETBALL Illinois State @ Utah WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Impressive Michigan lineup Women focus on to challenge Runnin' Utes performance, not game record Joseph Simmons STAFF WRITER In the first game of a back-to-back set against conference powerhouses, which will finish Saturday against the Oklahoma Sooners, the Runnin' Utes will welcome the Michigan Wolverines to the Huntsman Center tonight. "These are maybe the biggest two home games in one week since 1989," said head coach Jim Boylen. "I like our schedule this year. I think it's as competitive as it's ever been." The Wolverines (4-3) spent the first three weeks of the 2009 season ranked No. 15 in the nation but fell out of the Top 25 after a three-game skid in late November. Michigan has yet to play a true road game this season, with its only away games coming from a neutral-site tournament in Orlando, Fla. Michigan head coach John Beilein said that coming to Salt Lake City to face the Utes (4-4) presents his team with several new challenges simultaneously. "We will not see size like this again the entire year, so we have to adjust for that," Beilein said. "We have the altitude, we have the first road game—there's a lot of different things that are healthy for us in the long run, but right now are going to be difficult to overcome." The Wolverines are led by their junior guard Manny Harris, who will be starting his 75th consecutive game for Beilein tonight. Harris was a first-team Big io selection last season, was on this preseason's Naismith Player of the Year Watch List and has proven to be a handful for every team he's faced this season. Harris leads Michigan in scoring with 21.1 points per game and is also big on the glass, pulling down almost nine boards and averaging 5.4 assists. Harris is complemented by forward DeShawn Sims, who is a dangerous See MEN Page 8 Liz Frome STAFF WRITER TYLER COBB/The Daily Utah Chronicle Utah's Carton Brown sneaks a pass around Cal defender Patrick Christopher during last year's matchup with the Golden Bears. The Runnin' Utes will face Michigan tonight and Oklahoma on Saturday. Although the Utes are sitting at an even 4-4 record thus far into the preseason, head coach Elaine Elliott said the team and coaching staff are measuring Utah's progress not by its record, but rather by the improvements in its performance throughout the team's one month of play. "There isn't any measurement in record or anything else for us, forever," Elliott said. "We want to be performance-based and not outcome-based. We certainly know that the best is ahead of us, and that's the most important measurement...(but) 8-o wouldn't say anymore about us than 4-4. Outcomes don't tell you who you are. Your performance tells you who you are." After winning three games in a row against Santa Clara, Weber State and Idaho State, the Utes lost in a hard-fought battle to then-No. 25 Louisville in Kentucky. Despite four of Utah's starters scoring in double figures, and coming from behind to take a six-point lead by halftime, the young team couldn't manage to put itself on top in the last few minutes. "Our kids competed exceptionally hard," Elliott said. "We could have pulled out the 'W' We are so far from executing and understanding the things that we need to understand, and we were right there. I am proud of them." Senior forward Kalee Whipple once again led the Utes in scor- ing with 16, followed closely by freshman forward Taryn Wicijowski (15). Sophomore point guard Janita Badon tallied 12 points and a career-high eight rebounds on the night, and senior forward Halie Sawyer added io points for the Utes. The 55-60 loss was the second time in five games that the Utes matched up against a ranked team, following their 19-point defeat at the hands of No. 2 Stanford on Nov. 27. In spite of dealing with another tough loss in the preseason, the Utes were handed some good news earlier this week when Wicijowski was named the Mountain West Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Week, the first of her career. Last week, in Utah's 2-1 stretch, Wicijowski averaged 15 points, 9.3 rebounds and three assists per game. She has accumulated two double-doubles so far this season, 13 points and io rebounds in the Utes' win and first home game of the season against Minnesota. She also had 16 points and 14 rebounds in Utah's win over Weber State four games later. Against Weber State, Wicijowski had achieved a double-double by halftime. "I wouldn't have (my role on this team be) any other way," Wicijowski said. "I think I play better knowing that I have some contribution that's expected of me. I kind of take that role and... go with it, because that's the role that I like to have." See WOMEN Page 8 THE GREAT DEBATE —1 Which team deserves to be in the title game? Texas' clutch performance worthy of championship T he Bowl Championship Series might have screwed up and put the two non-automatically qualifying teams in the same bowl game, but it did get something right. The BCS National Championship game should be played between Alabama and Texas. All along it has been said that the winner of the Southeastern Conference and the winner of the Big I2—assuming both went undefeated—would play for the national title. That is exactly what happened. Many people say Texas doesn't deserve to be in the title game because it barely squeaked past Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship game, but I don't know how many times I have heard coaches, players and media alike say, "A win is a win." Yes, TCU beat more Top-25 teams by larger margins of victory than Texas did, and yes, it's likely that a TCU Texas matchup would result in a TCU win, but the fact of the matter is that we are talking about the BCS. Nothing it does makes sense, but at least it sticks to its guns. The BCS has made it clear that it doesn't care who the best team in the nation is. It only cares about the best team in BCS conferences. After all, it is called the BCS National Championship for a reason. The BCS has never wavered from putting automatic qualifying teams in the championship. I don't support the BCS in any way and think that a playoff system is the only real way to determine the top team in the nation, but for now, all we have is the BCS, and it has been consistent—consistently screwing over small schools, which is another column altogether. Texas won out in the Big 12. It did its job as far as the BCS is concerned and deserves a shot at the title. For the second time in five years, Texas PAIGE FIELDSTEIA Senior, Mass Communication and Psychology will compete for the national title, and though it hasn't been dominant all season, it deserves to be there. Colt McCoy is a finalist for the Heisman Trophy for a reason. He has been a big impact player for Texas. McCoy has thrown for 3,512 yards and 27 touchdowns on the season, completing 70 percent of his passes and only throwing 12 interceptions, leading the Longhorns to an undefeated season and a BCS National Championship game. Even though TCU has a larger average margin of victory than Texas, the Longhorns have proven they can deliver in the clutch and score when it matters most. Texas looked sloppy and unorganized against Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship and almost didn't get the snap off in time for the final play of the game, a 46yard game winning field goal, but in the end it delivered and earned the win. I would have loved to see TCU get into the title game because that would benefit the Mountain West Conference—and therefore Utah down the road—but in terms of the BCS and the system, it runs the championship dead-on. An Alabama-Texas title game is how it should be. pfieldsted@chronicle.utah.edu TCU margin of victory should put it above Longhorns W hen the Bowl Championship Series was put in place in 1998, its primary purpose was to ensure that the best two teams in college football would be given the opportunity to play for a national championship, but as we look ahead to the iith BCS National Championship game, the system has once again gotten it wrong. To be clear, the BCS got it right by inviting Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide to Pasadena. The Tide finished the season undefeated and did so in the toughest football conference in America—the Southeastern Conference—not to mention knocking off the No. i-ranked Florida Gators in the SEC championship. Alabama beat quality opponents week in and week out and deserves a shot at a national title. The same can't be said for Texas. Rather than earning their way into the championship game, the Texas Longhorns and head coach Mack Brown rode a wave of preseason hype to get into college football's biggest game. At the end of the 2008 season, Texas was the odd man out looking in on the National Championship between Florida and Oklahoma. Despite beating Oklahoma headto-head, Texas was held out of the big game and forced to play in the Fiesta Bowl, where it beat Ohio State. With that said, maybe the BCS couldn't bear to punish one of its own for two years in a row and again keep Texas out of the National Championship, but that doesn't mean Texas deserves to be there. Texas is one of five schools to finish the regular season undefeated, along with TCU, Boise State, Alabama and Cincinnati. With Alabama already in the championship, it left the BCS to choose from one of the other four—a 25 percent chance of getting it right, and it still managed to screw it up. • Last week's Great Debate was a tie. Vote for this week's winner at www.dailyutahchronicle.com . BRYAN CHOUINARD Junior, Parks, Recreation and Tourism Texas finished the season undefeated but did so in a down year for the Big 12. In 13 games this season, including the Big 12 Championship against Nebraska, the Longhorns faced a total of six teams that finished with winning records, only two of which finished in the Top 25—No. 19 Oklahoma State and No. 22 Nebraska. Take a minute to let that really set in—the Texas Longhorns made the National Championship game without playing any of the Top 15 teams in the country. Then, look at TCU. The Horned Frogs, who played against two teams ranked in the Top 25 this season—BYU and Utah—had an average margin of victory over ranked teams of 29 points, and the Longhorns beat their ranked opponents by only 10.3 points per game in 2009. The two teams even have a common opponent—the Wyoming Cowboys. Both TCU and Texas went to Laramie, Wyo., to take on the Cowboys and though both teams won, it took a second-half comeback for Texas to beat the Cowboys 41-10, but the Horned Frogs got the best of Wyoming 45-10. In the end, the BCS got half of the National Championship game right, but it picked the wrong team from Texas. But after io years of getting wrong, who really thought the BCS would get it right this time? b.chouinard@ chronicle.utah.edu |