Runaway — Bogut, Utes dominate second half

PROVO — Utah used a second-half blitz to bury BYU 72-58 and run the Ute win streak to 13 straight games Monday night before 14,072 in the Marriott Center.

Andrew Bogut, playing with a migraine headache, broke out of a first-half slump to KO BYU with blocked shots, spin moves, set-up passes and deadly throws at the line. Bogut received two doses of IV solution an hour before the game, according to Utah athletic director Chris Hill.

The second-half flurry by the Utes, after trailing BYU 29-28 at halftime, followed a familiar pattern. Utah trailed CSU by four at the half before winning by 23. Same deed against Air Force. The Cougars fared no better than their MWC brothers, and at the end tempers flared.

The win lifted Utah to 18-3 overall, 6-0 in the MWC. BYU's loss, the third league defeat at home this season, sent the Cougars to 7-14 and 1-5.

Bogut, named a finalist for the John Wooden award on Monday, has terrorized the Mountain West Conference the past month. Most experts predict he'll be a top-five pick in the NBA draft.

Bogut grabbed 15 rebounds in a win over UNLV, then missed just one shot against Wyoming. He led a second-half comeback win at Colorado State with 25 points and 18 rebounds and finished with 24 points and 20 rebounds in a victory over New Mexico. Perhaps Bogut's best game came against Air Force when, after missing his first shot, he made 11 straight field goals for 25 points. He only had nine rebounds, but that equaled the entire Falcon team for the game.

The Cougars threw three centers in succession at Bogut, starting with sophomore Derek Dawes, freshman Chris Miles and then senior Jared Jensen. Dawes picked up his second personal and sat down the final 14 minutes of the first.

Before Bogut replaced Richard Chaney at the free-throw line on a correctable error that took away a Chaney free throw with 49 seconds left in the first half, Cougar guard Austin Ainge and Bogut led all scorers with nine first-half points.

The Cougars took a 15-9 lead early on a pair of bombs by Ainge and Michael Rose and led 19-16 before Utah went on a 6-0 run to lead 22-19 on Bogut's third field goal with 5:42 to play before the break.

BYU took a 29-28 halftime lead on an offensive rebound basket by Garner Meads after Jensen made one of what could have been four from the line in the final three minutes of the first. At that stage of the game, BYU had the field-goal edge 11-9 and had a 3-1 3-point-goal advantage while outboarding the Utes 14-11.