Utah Utes basketball: Resurgent Utes hit .500 with win vs. TCU

FORT WORTH, Texas — The sign was positioned on the first row behind Utah's bench, clearly visible to any Ute.

"Ya'll aren't even the good team from Utah," the sign read, obviously referring to nationally ranked, once-beaten BYU as the favorable team in the state.

Take into account the Cougars' 25-point victory at Utah on Jan. 11 and one would be hard-pressed to disagree that BYU is currently the better of the two programs.

But the gap between the two rivals certainly doesn't seem to fit the 25-point whooping from 12 days ago. At least not with the way Utah has played since then.

Will Clyburn scored a game-high 22 points and Josh Watkins added 14 for Utah, which extended its winning-streak to three games since that loss to BYU with a 75-62 victory over TCU at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum on Saturday.

"Rudy Tomjanovich told me a long time ago that you evaluate your team whether you win or lose, because you can win games and not get better and you can lose games and get better," Utah coach Jim Boylen said. "I give credit to these guys. They allowed me to coach them and our staff to teach them, and I think we are getting better. I'm thankful for the win."

The victory was important for several reasons. It further removed the Utes from the cellar of the Mountain West Conference and brought both their overall and conference records to the .500 mark, which is a marked improvement for a team that was muddled in a seven-game losing streak with that loss to BYU.

"Getting to .500 is a big deal," Watkins said. "I don't know anybody in the nation that could lose seven straight and get back to .500. I feel like we worked at it, and we have to keep working at it until we get over (.500)."

Utah (10-10, 3-3 MWC) will have a chance to do so at home next Saturday against Colorado State.

"I think it does a lot (to be .500)," Boylen said. "More importantly, it substantiates what I've been saying in that we have a pretty good team. We have a lot of games not to overreact to anything."

Shawn Glover, who is from nearby Cedar Hill, Texas, hit three treys and finished with 11 points for Utah, which made 14 of its last 18 field goals in the first half to build a five-point cushion that quickly grew to double digits in the second half.

Glover's 3-pointer off a Jason Washburn block with 15:39 left in the second pushed Utah's lead to that double-digit margin for the first time at 48-38. TCU never really threatened the Utes from that point.