A not-so-grand finale for Giacoletti

PROVO — A full house. A boisterous crowd. A big-game atmosphere.

A championship ceremony.

Exactly what Utah basketball coach Ray Giacoletti envisioned.

Except for this: wrong time, wrong place, wrong team.

And, if you ask the Ute administration, wrong coach.

The end of the nightmare is close, though. One more game in the Mountain West Conference tournament this week and he can leave and never come back. He'll be on his way to that long vacation he plans to take with his wife. Here's guessing it will be somewhere far from Provo, Salt Lake and anyplace else where Utah basketball might be a topic.

Someplace where he's just another nice guy, taking a break from his job.

Saturday's blowout loss to BYU wrapped up the last regular season game for Giacoletti, who resigned under pressure, Friday. On Saturday it was easy to see why he's gone. Too many lazy passes, too little defense, too many forced shots. And way too much BYU. It went the way Utah's past two seasons have gone. In the late first half, BYU put up an air ball that came down right into the hands of the Utes — only to be fumbled out of bounds anyway. Isn't that the way it's been — fumbling away the opportunities?

At one point the BYU lead got to 29, the Cougars and the crowd were still pouring it on, and you had to ask: Can't someone pull the plug?

Maybe Giacoletti and the Utes were already on vacation.

As Saturday's game approached, there was actually some speculation that perhaps the Utes — facing their biggest rival — might somehow win one for the Gipper. But of course, that wasn't going to happen.

They didn't win for him before, why start now?

So they stayed with the Cougars for part of a half and then checked out. There would be no stirring send-offs. Just like Giacoletti's resignation speech, there wasn't a whole lot of emotion, just a lot of resignation. Asked afterward if he felt his team gave an acceptable effort in the 85-62 loss, Giacoletti said, "Probably not." He went on to note BYU's high score and 59-percent shooting.

Nonetheless, he took it as he always has — with style. He didn't bad-mouth the Cougars or even the school that fired him. (Oops. Did we say fired? He "resigned" — leaving roughly $1.3 million on the table.)

If there was any protest by Giacoletti, it was in his dress.