Utahns recall glory days at 'the Dance'

Right after the opening tipoff, BYU freshman Mark Durrant grabbed a pass from teammate Marty Haws and dashed in for a layup to give the No. 12-seeded Cougars an early 2-0 lead against No. 5-seeded Clemson in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Hartford, Conn.

It was March 15, 1990, and it was the first game of the tournament that season, which meant Durrant scored the first basket of the Big Dance.

"That's my claim to fame," he says now. "That was pretty exciting for me, thinking about the team we were playing and that the whole nation was watching it."

Nineteen years later, Durrant, who works as an attorney in Salt Lake City and also as a color commentator for BYU games on KSL radio, still remembers the highs and lows of that tournament experience, especially the gut-wrenching way the Cougars lost that game, 49-47, against a team with future NBA players. A missed layup in the game's waning seconds cost BYU a chance to advance.

"It really could have been one of the great moments in BYU basketball history," Durrant says. "It's hard to even think about it. Every year that goes by, it almost hurts more because I realize how close we were. If we had won that game, we were in position to win a couple more.

"When you're young, you're more resilient and you think about having more chances to do it again. But now, even 20 years later, it really eats at me. But most teams' seasons end in heartbreak in the tournament. Only one team gets the championship."

This is why players love competing in the NCAA Tournament and why fans love watching it. It's must-see, reality TV with drama, raw emotion and unforgettable moments. For the winning teams, it's otherworldly excitement. For the losers, it's an unforgiving finality.

Today, Durrant will be courtside at The Wachovia Center in Philadelphia to help call the action — in one of this year's first tournament games — when BYU faces Texas A&M in a first-round showdown. Durrant was also a member of the last BYU team to win an NCAA Tournament game in 1993.

A world away, former Utah star Britton Johnsen, who is playing professional basketball in Greece, is looking forward to watching the Utes play Arizona on Friday, though he'll have to do so via the Internet.

As a freshman, Johnsen played on that storied 1998 squad that marched to the NCAA championship game before falling to Utah's longtime nemesis, Kentucky.