Utes face pivotal contest

AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Even though Utah coach Rick Majerus may not know it — or admit it — his Utes face a key game tonight that may go a long way toward determining the eventual Mountain West Conference champion.

Sure it's early in the race, but tonight's Utah-Air Force game (7 p.m. KJZZ) at Clune Arena is a big one for both teams, something that has never been the case in past years.

The Falcons already have as many wins as last season — three — and sit atop the MWC standings at 3-0, a half game ahead of Utah at 3-1. A win by the Falcons, who have won 11 straight, will put them two games up on the Utes in the loss column. On the other hand, a Ute victory catapults them back into first place with a big road win.

While the Falcons are coming off a very impressive 74-52 whipping of league favorite BYU Saturday, the Utes are trying to recover from a 70-54 licking at New Mexico.

Majerus, who has always praised the Falcons for their toughness, even when they were the annual cellar-dwellers, is doing his best not to make a big deal out of one game.

"I never get into scores or where you stand in the league," said Majerus. "I haven't looked at league standings in 15 years. I'm not the brightest guy in the world. I'm the consummate game-at-a-time guy."

Majerus does know his team will have to play much better tonight if it wants to have any chance of going home with a split on this road trip.

The Utes will have to figure out a way to stop the Falcons' "Princeton" offense and find a way to score against the nation's best defensive team (48 points allowed per game).

The Falcons return starters A.J. Kuhle, Joel Gerlach and Tim Keller from last year, but Nick Welch has come up big for the Falcons lately. The 6-8 sophomore center was named MWC Player of the Week last week, and Saturday against BYU he scored 20 points on 9 of 10 shooting from the field, a school record. As a team the Falcons shot 72 percent from the field Saturday before a record crowd of 6,359.

AFA coach Joe Scott has always been confident in his team's ability, but it's brimming over right now.

"To perform like this, I think we let everyone in America know that right now, at this juncture in the college basketball season, this is one of America's best teams, bar none," he said.