"I'm not big into me and I," he said. "I think it has to be a team effort with everybody. From here on out, it's We, Us and The Muss. That's our statement."

Boylen didn't talk about specific Ute players, who were all standing in the back of the room, but said, "The biggest need is to improve our toughness and improve our competitive edge. If we do those two things, I think we have enough talent, enough skill level to win games. But those two things have to improve."

He added, "We're going to play hard and we're going to compete.

"If we do those things and we learn and get better every day, we're going to be a team you can be proud of. We're going to graduate our players, we're going to win and we're going to put guys in the pros.

"That's what we've done everywhere I've been, and that's what we're going to do here."

After the press conference, Boylen met with various Ute boosters and did several interviews. Then he went inside the arena to meet with his players for the first time and promptly scheduled a practice for 6 a.m. on Thursday. He'll leave the day after that for the Final Four in Atlanta.

Boylen said he hadn't made any decisions on assistant coaches yet, but he may work on that while he's in Atlanta, along with hundreds of other collegiate coaches this weekend.

"We've put some names on paper," he said. "I have some people in mind. We're going to take our time and hire the right people. I believe in teachers, because I think teachers are the guys that can recruit."

Boylen also addressed the issue of perhaps using the Ute job as a stepping stone to move to a bigger and better job.

"I made a commitment to build this thing," he said. "I have no plans on moving. I've moved four times in five years. If you think I want to move again you're crazy. I have two small children. My wife is very excited to be here. We're here for the long haul."

As for how long that might be, Boylen said, "We have 28 championships here. I'm going to be 42 (next month) and I can coach for 20 more years. If we don't leave with 48, then I didn't do my job. I believe that. You have to dream it before you can live it.

"We're going to dream it here and we're going to live it."

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E-mail: sor@desnews.com