Utah Utes basketball: Former Ute Carlon Brown downplaying Buffs-Utes Pac-12 opener

BOULDER, Colo. — When we last saw Carlon Brown, he was headed out of town with a bunch of other Ute basketball players, some who were disgruntled and others who were being gently shoved out the door.

Among the five players who left after the 2009-10 season, Brown probably fit into both categories. He was unhappy with the Ute program, while coach Jim Boylen, who felt Brown wasn't enough of a team player for him, wasn't too sorry to see him go.

Two seasons later, the 6-foot-5 guard from California is happy, playing his final year of college ball for the University of Colorado, where he is the leading scorer at 13.0 points per game. The 8-4 Buffaloes host 3-9 Utah Saturday at 4 p.m. (ROOT Sports TV, 99.1 FM) in the Pac-12 opener for both teams.

Brown isn't making a big deal about playing his old school, saying, "I'm going to treat it like any other game and hopefully get off to a 1-0 start in the league."

Although it was generally known that Brown was not happy during his final season at Utah, he preferred not to go into much detail about his early departure in an interview earlier this week.

"I just didn't like the direction the program was headed and felt I would be better off going somewhere else," he said.

Brown had been recruited to Utah by former coach Ray Giacoletti in 2006, but never got to play for him. Coach Jim Boylen replaced Giacoletti in March of '07 and Brown decided to stay.

He immediately earned a starting spot as a freshman and averaged 4.3 points in 18 minutes per game as the Utes went 18-15.

As a sophomore, Brown started all 34 games for Utah's Mountain West Conference champion team that finished 24-10. He averaged 9.3 points and 5.2 rebounds, shot 45.6 from the field and also led the team in assists at 3.4 per game.

The following year, Boylen wanted some experience off the bench and asked Brown to do something he hadn't done the previous two seasons.

Brown didn't really like being the sixth man although he ended up starting a dozen of Utah's 31 games. He led the Utes in scoring at 12.6 points per game and shot 40.9 percent from the field, improving his 3-point shooting to 35.1 percent from 17.2 percent the previous year.