Utah Utes basketball: Jim Boylen may be fighting to keep his job

SALT LAKE CITY — When Lennon and McCartney wrote the song "Getting Better" on their Sergeant Pepper's album 43 years ago, they were referring to a love interest, not basketball.

"Getting better" is the refrain we've been hearing from Utah coach Jim Boylen and his basketball program for the past three-and-a-half years since he was named coach. It rang true for the first two years when the Utes went from 11-19 to a winning season capped by a win in the CBI tournament his first year, followed up by a Mountain West Conference championship team and a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament in his second.

But not so much lately.

Following Friday night's loss to Portland, the Utah basketball team stands 7-7 on the season. With the Mountain West Conference season starting in a couple of days, it appears the Utes are going to need a minor miracle to still be .500 by the end of the season.

That's because the MWC might be better than ever this year. Two teams, San Diego State and BYU, are ranked 7th and 16th in the nation, respectively. UNLV has been in the Top 25 this year and is currently first in the "others receiving votes" category. Besides the Big Three, you've got New Mexico at 11-3, Colorado State at 10-4 and TCU at 9-5.

Boylen and his Utes have a daunting task to finish with a winning record and make it to a postseason tournament.

After last year's 14-17 campaign, which culminated with an exodus of players, some forced, others not, the Utes basically started over this year. They brought in four junior college transfers and five freshmen, four of whom are redshirting.

Boylen asked for patience with his young squad and during the first month, things seemed to be progressing along fine. The Utes easily beat Montana, a team that went on to beat UCLA and Oregon State, and also knocked off Bradley on the road, beat Weber State by 15 and came back from 16 down to defeat Boise State.

However, three losses in a tournament in Hawaii two weeks ago, including one to an undermanned Hawaii team and another to a 2-10 San Diego team, was a giant step backward and sent many Ute followers reeling, questioning their coach's future. The Utes rebounded to play one of their better halves of the season at Portland Friday night in taking a double-digit lead, before faltering and losing by nine.