U. looks to rebound vs. Santa Clara

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Eight days after opening their season with a shocking home loss to Southern Utah, the Utah basketball team has a chance to even its record tonight when it takes on Santa Clara at 8 p.m. (MST) at the 4,500-seat Leavey Center.

The Broncos opened their season Tuesday night with an 83-51 victory over Holy Names, an NAIA school with a 1-4 record. It will be the first meeting between the two schools since 1988.

While the Utes are concerned about their opponent, they are more concerned about themselves after allowing the T-Birds to shoot 65 percent from the field and come from nine points down in the second half.

The Utes have been working hard on defense, and Ute coach Ray Giacoletti hopes his team will show a much better effort tonight.

"Hopefully we've addressed that," he said. "We need to do a better job of defending off the screens."

Giacoletti will also likely shorten his rotation tonight, especially if the game is close. Last week he used 11 players before halftime and 12 in all.

"We're trying to find a rotation that fits," he said. "It's all about winning right now."

The Utes are likely to start Luke Nevill at center, Shaun Green and Ricky Johns at forward and Johnnie Bryant and Chris Grant at the guard line. Stephen Weigh, the freshman from Australia, will see a lot of minutes, and Lawrence Borha, Daniel Deane and Kim Tillie are also likely to see action.

Santa Clara has a veteran team with four starters returning from a 13-16 team.

Junior Brody Angley, a 5-11 guard, is the top returning scorer (10.1 ppg), who also led the team in assists (4.9) last year. Inside, the Broncos have 6-11, 245-pound Sean Dennison, who led the team in rebounds last year at 6.1 per game. He's joined by junior forward Mitch Henke, who has 11 points and 11 rebounds in the opener and 7-foot, 275-pound Josh Higgins, a transfer from Western Kentucky.

Giacoletti said he knows Angley's game well since he is from Spokane, Wash., near where Giacoletti coached at Eastern Washington.

"He's a tough, hard-nosed player," Giacoletti said.

As if Dennison and Higgins aren't enough to handle inside, the Broncos also have 6-10, 305-pound John Bryant.